Funny You Should Mention: Ariel Elias

Summary

The Gist: "Funny You Should Mention: Ariel Elias"

Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Ariel Elias
Date: October 24, 2025
Podcast Description: Mike Pesca’s “Funny You Should Mention” brings a comic into focus for an in-depth, wry, and revealing conversation about the roots and processes of their humor. Today’s guest, Ariel Elias, is a Jewish stand-up comic from Kentucky, discussing identity, her special "A Jewish Star," and the infamous beer-throwing viral moment that changed her career.

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Overview

This episode dives into the complexities and comedy of cultural identity, outsider experiences, and the evolving art of stand-up with comic Ariel Elias. Pesca explores Elias’ Jewish upbringing in Kentucky, her journey through New York and the comedy circuit, her new special, and the viral incident that catapulted her into the national spotlight. Along the way, the conversation touches on concepts of belonging, voice, and honesty in comedy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ariel’s Southern Jewish Identity

• Contrasts Growing Up Jewish in Kentucky vs. Living in New York

  • Elias describes how in Kentucky she had to explain Judaism, often fielding naive questions like "but you still have Jesus, right?"
    [06:25]
  • In New York, she finds herself explaining Kentucky and "how Jews ended up in Kentucky" to baffled city-dwellers.
  • Observation on Kentucky’s cultural identity:
    • “If you have to specify that you want your tea unsweetened, you're in the south and that's Kentucky. And like, any soda is a Coke." [07:32]

• Cultural Stereotypes and Ignorance

  • People in Kentucky were generally ignorant rather than malicious regarding Jewish customs and stereotypes.
  • Elias recounts learning about antisemitic slurs from classmates who were equally unaware, learning together "without malice." [09:36]
  • “I feel like we were all just kind of learning about antisemitism together… we're all just ignorant together.” [09:36]

Family & Jewish Heritage

• Immigrant Roots
  • Elias’ mother’s family hails from Russia, Poland, Lithuania; her father’s from Spain and Greece, making her “little Sephardic.”
• Spanish Citizenship as Jewish Backup Plan
  • Gained Spanish citizenship through a law for descendants of Jews expelled in the Inquisition.
  • Oath ceremony notably on Jan 6, 2021: “Every January 6th I just get a reminder of how happy I looked on January 6. And the caption that I wrote was, 'today we have righted one of history's greatest injustices.’” [14:01]
  • Discusses the emotional and practical value (“peace of mind”) of “always having a backup plan” as a Jew.

Navigating Comedy and Outsider Humor

• Comedy as Anthropological Outlet

  • Pesca describes Elias as both observational and explanatory, using her status as “outsider” for comic effect.
  • “You spend so much time explaining yourself growing up, that inevitably you're like, oh, well, how do I take this thing that…feels a little bit like a burden and turn it into a career, basically?” – Ariel Elias [34:41]

• Approach to Material & Delivery

  • Explanatory style: “I just want to explain to you how I got here.” [35:46]
  • Discusses clean vs. edgier material:
    • Details on writing cleaner jokes for synagogue gigs, especially conscious of older and more conservative audiences.
      “I have a little bit of a lack of comfort with [sex jokes]…aware of my audience and how they see me.” [44:20]
    • Example: Jokes about circumcision do better with “Reform” temples and in social halls than in sanctuaries. [42:48]

Airline Bits

• Airline Preferences and Bits
  • SouthWest Airlines: “If you've ever asked the question, can an airline have clinical depression? Southwest is here to answer.” [19:25]
  • Why she avoids Spirit Airlines: “I don't like feeling duped. And I think Spirit's whole thing is they want to dupe you into thinking that you're paying less…” [21:27]
  • Tom Takar’s Spirit Airlines joke referenced for being “so cheap, that even if the plane crashes, you're like, still pretty good deal.” [21:59]

The Viral Beer Incident

• Recounting the Moment
  • A Trump-supporting heckler threw a beer at her; captured on video as Ariel picked it up and drank it, calmly returning to her set and selling merch.
  • On thinking in the moment:
    “I remember thinking, would it be funny if I picked it up and drank it. Only one way to find out.” [64:28]
  • She clipped and released the video herself, which quickly went viral.
  • Catapult to Late Night: Used the viral fame to directly ask (and receive) a spot on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “And he said, definitely. And then they were going on hiatus for like two weeks, but then he was like, yeah, come out.” [68:40]
  • Reflects on viral fame: “Are you remembering watching the video of you or are you remembering actually being on stage?” [70:52]

Writing, Honesty & Comic Influences

• On Truth in Comedy

  • Committed to saying things she believes: “If I don’t believe in what I'm saying, why am I saying it?” [48:56]
  • Admits to occasional embellishment for comedic effect, but underlying point must ring true.
  • “I do think it's okay to lie in a joke…sometimes you'll get into the nitty gritty of the details where it's like, that didn't actually happen. But the point that I'm making feels true still.” [51:05]

• Influences and Finding a Voice

  • Started by emulating Sarah Silverman’s “saying the opposite of what you mean” character, grew into her own style.
  • Nikki Glaser credited with teaching her how to write a joke: “[She’s] how I learned how to write a joke.” [47:29]
  • Now focused on clear, explanatory, story-driven stand-up.

Navigating Contemporary Jewish Identity

• New Special: 'A Jewish Star'

  • Pushed back on reps who thought the title might be risky during a time of rising antisemitism.
  • “I think being Jewish played a big part in the empathy that I think I have and the social justice that I feel.” [53:06]
  • On audience or internet pressures: “It’s like…this group of people wants you to say this. This group…wants you to say this… But when I'm on stage…that, to me, feels like I'm conveying who I am. And I do think, like, who I want to convey to the world is that, like, I'm a fucking Jewish star.” [54:26]

• Balancing Identity with Comedy

  • Willingness to embrace her visible identity even if it brings negative attention: “I think I’m gonna get [antisemitism] anyway… Naming it something different won’t hide anything.” [52:48]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Kentucky’s Southern Identity:
  "If you have to specify that you want your tea unsweetened, you're in the south and that's Kentucky. And like, any soda is a Coke." – Ariel Elias [07:32]

• On Jewish Stereotypes in Her Kentucky Town:
  “I feel like we were all just kind of learning about antisemitism together… we're all just ignorant together.” – Ariel Elias [09:36]

• On Having a European Backup Plan:
  “I think every Jew has in the back of their mind, like, where do we go in case...” – Ariel Elias [15:41]

• On the Value of Explaining Oneself:
  “You spend so much time explaining yourself growing up, that inevitably you're like, oh, well, how do I take this thing that kind of feels a little bit like a burden and turn it into a career, basically?” – Ariel Elias [34:41]

• On Airline Comedy:
  “If you've ever asked the question, can an airline have clinical depression? Southwest is here to answer. Yeah, we sure can. We sure can.” – Ariel Elias [19:25]

• On Her Viral Fame:
  “I remember thinking, would it be funny if I picked it up and drank it. Only one way to find out.” – Ariel Elias [64:28]

• On Truth in Jokes:
  “If I don’t believe in what I'm saying, why am I saying it?” – Ariel Elias [48:56]

• On Artistic Integrity During Hard Times:
  “I'm still very proud of being Jewish and, like, nothing will change that. I'm very proud of the community that I come from. … I do think, like, who I want to convey to the world is that, like, I'm a fucking Jewish star.” – Ariel Elias [53:06, 54:26]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:37] Start of substantive interview: Ariel’s Kentucky/Jewish background
• [09:36] Discussing ignorance vs. malice with stereotypes in Kentucky
• [14:01] Spanish citizenship story and January 6th connection
• [19:25] Southwest Airlines and Spirit Airlines comedy
• [33:33] Comedy and the explanatory style of telling one’s story
• [34:41] Roots of observational/comedy instincts
• [41:25] Clean vs. risqué material: tailoring for synagogue shows
• [52:48] Debating the risks and necessity of a Jewish-themed special title
• [64:28] Play-by-play of the viral beer-throw at Uncle Vinny’s and aftermath
• [68:40] How the viral moment led to Jimmy Kimmel Live
• [70:52] On remembering lived experience vs. the video

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Tone & Style

• Pesca’s tone is conversational, dry, and keenly observational, regularly veering into wry meta-commentary. Ariel’s humor is quick, self-effacing, explanatory, and often centers on the dissonance between insider and outsider identity.
• The episode mixes lighthearted cultural digressions (e.g., on Hanukkah miracles and airline jokes) with personal reflections and subtle critiques of both anti- and philo-semitism.

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Conclusion

This episode showcases how comedy can be both a means of navigating outsider status and a tool for resilience and self-expression. Ariel Elias’ special "A Jewish Star" and her now-famous viral moment reflect the power—and challenges—of owning your identity in a time of cultural and political tension.
Pesca and Elias’s conversation unpacks the art of building a comic voice rooted in honesty, anthropology, and the complex interplay between humor and heritage.

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Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Friday, October 24, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and this is funny you should mention with our guest Ariel Elias. Or is it Arielle? That's one of her jokes. So I first became aware of Arielle when maybe you did. She had a clip, an incident where a Trump fan heckled her which comedians have to handle and then a Trump fan threw some beer at her and she reacted quite well. Kind of changed the trajectory of her career. I coincidentally I go to the Comedy Cellar quite often. I caught her set and she was winning and she was CL clever and I definitely wanted to have her on the show. Now as I say we have videos of all of these funny you should mention episodes and especially if you listen in Spotify the videos come on automatically. Spotify is now essentially a video service. There is a visual bit at the end of the interview which you will only get there and I don't want to talk more about it. I both want to tease it but I don't want to step on it. I think it's worth the price of admission if you just like the audio form as I do. Listen to it wherever you've been listening to it or check it out out on Spotify and give yourself the option of both. And that one last laugh that's so important. I hear he who laughs last laughs best as Ariel Elias and Ariel Elias is the personification of that. On this episode of Funny you should Mitch Claude is, oh, a pal. My AI assistant who has helped me with many tasks. Tasks that you can see as say, a GIST subscriber or a just listener. So on. On the Mike Pesca webpage, we're starting to put together these little bundles to introduce the kind of interviews I do. I've done 10 years of shows, so I don't know. I don't know about the groupings. I don't know about which were the good interviews. So I started loading information into Claude. I loaded luckily we have a spreadsheet that actually CLAUDE helped make loading information in asking Claude to suggest different combinations of different categories and it's not up yet, but it's going to get there. And it really would have taken hours more without Claude and it wouldn't have been really, really good like I think it's going to be. So it thinks deeper about challenges than I would have. It is the sort of thing sometimes it does orthogonal thinking where I wouldn't have put this military expert and that science guy together and call it oh, thought leaders. So CLAUDE was I will divulge one of those services that I decided to pay for before I knew they would even advertise. And when they said, hey, you want to do an ad? I said, yeah. So I could say things like Claude code is a game changer for developers. It works directly in your terminal and understands your entire code base and handles complex engineering tasks, ready to tackle bigger problems. Sign up for CLAUDE today and get 50% off Claude Pro when you use my link. Claude AI the gist. That's Claude AI the gist right now for 50% off your first three months at Claude Pro. That includes access to all the features that I mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI slash the Gist AI agents.

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[Mike Pesca]

Hi, welcome to Funny youy Should Mention where we kind of break down punchlines and talk to comedians about how they got that idea and what they're trying to say. Joining us now is Ariel or maybe Ariel or maybe Earl Elias. She is a Jewish star and now is out with a special called A Jewish Star. Welcome. Welcome to Funny youy Should Mention.

[Ariel Elias]

Thank you.

[Mike Pesca]

So I don't want to give away too much, but you are Jewish.

[Ariel Elias]

Those are the choices. Yeah. Shocking.

[Mike Pesca]

And the star and from. And the star and from Kentucky.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So growing up, and there's a lot in the special about this, you had to sort of explain Judaism to the fellow Bluegrass State denizens. Right. They would come up to you and say you're a Jewish. Tell me about this. Right.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Now that you're a New Yorker, are you a New Yorker full time?

[Ariel Elias]

I think so.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, let's call yourself a New Yorker. Do you find yourself explaining Kentucky to New Yorkers more than you explained being a Jewish to Kentuckians?

[Ariel Elias]

Ooh, I think I find myself explaining how Jews ended up in Kentucky to New Yorkers more than anything. But, yeah, Most people in New York, I think, have no concept of what Kentucky is or looks like. It's just a place down there. Yeah, but it's a little different. I mean, when I'm explaining to Kentuckians growing up I'm Jewish, they'd be like, right, but you still have Jesus, right? No.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, it depends what you mean by have, like, on the team.

[Ariel Elias]

We do. Yeah, technically. But I think for New Yorkers explaining Kentucky, there's truly no idea of what it could possibly be like to live there. So you're kind of. It's more of a blank slate.

[Mike Pesca]

Also, maybe they understand the south and then they think that's Kentucky, but it's really not Kentucky's, you know. Right. Half Appalachia and a lot of border state energy.

[Ariel Elias]

It really depends on where in Kentucky you're talking about. It's culturally, I think, very Southern. Like the way I always put it is if you have to specify that you want your tea unsweetened, you're in the south and that's Kentucky. And like, any soda is a Coke. So regionally it feels. It feels very Southern. Except for Louisville. Louisville's a different thing. But geographically, yeah, I guess technically it's Midwest. It's very weird.

[Mike Pesca]

But also, I'm thinking during the Civil.

[Ariel Elias]

War, I'm thinking, yeah. I mean, we Were neutral.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, but that didn't really work. By neutral, you mean, you know, three brothers on one side, three on another. And it was neutral because it would even out by in death toll by the end of the war.

[Ariel Elias]

But didn't seced.

[Mike Pesca]

No, I know. But Mary Todd Lincoln's brothers, I think six of them did fight for the South. And she would grow very. Before the interview started, we, like I do with all interviews, talk about Mary Todd Lincoln with my guests. Just turns out there's a Lexington connection.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. It makes you understand why Abraham Lincoln waited until after the Civil War to declare Thanksgiving a holiday, because otherwise it would have been so awkward at dinners every year with her family.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, that's a good point. Although they did ship eight. So there was turkey being eaten around then. Like, there still was the concept of Thanksgiving, probably.

[Ariel Elias]

I feel like there has to be a concept if you're going to declare it a holiday.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right. You can't just say, I'm inventing this thing. All right. Yes. Right. So he. He officially declared it the holiday. Are people more so as you talk about in the special when. Especially when you're a kid, they weren't trying to be offensive when they would make mistakes about Judaism?

[Ariel Elias]

Sure.

[Mike Pesca]

Did they ever. Maybe when you were older, maybe people really meant it. Did you ever get hit with bonafide anti Semitism when you were in Kentucky?

[Ariel Elias]

I don't think so. I also am very lucky that I went to a high school that was like, super diverse racially, so everybody kind of knew what it felt like to not be in the majority. So there was a little bit more understanding. But no, I mean, I feel like we were all just kind of learning about antisemitism together, like, I remember.

[Mike Pesca]

And were you like, holy shit.

[Ariel Elias]

I know. I was like, what? That's one of our stereotypes. I didn't know.

[Mike Pesca]

What didn't you know that was a Jewish stereotype.

[Ariel Elias]

I remember one time this girl in my class, this was in high school, like, I should have known. But she came up to me and she was like, hey, what's the K word? And I was like, kentucky. Like, I don't know. And she was like, I just. I heard it on Law and Order. They kept saying the K word. And so I had to. I mean, I'm like 16. I had to go home to my mom and be like, mom, what's the K word? And she was like, did somebody call you that? And I was like, no, we're all just ignorant together. We don't know. So, like, yeah, that. But Again, like, no malice.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Did they. Did they think that or did you find out from someone else that Jews are supposed to be, I don't know, cheap, or that Jews are supposed to be whatever the. Whatever the other stereotypes of Jews are said to be. Good with money. There's one. Good with money, rich. There's another one.

[Ariel Elias]

It's a good question. I don't remember, like, the moment I experienced that or the moment I learned about it, because when I was. Where I grew up, all of the Jews, they were all professors. Like, everybody. They all moved to Kentucky to, like, teach at UK or eku.

[Mike Pesca]

Is that the answer to how your family came to Kentucky?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, my dad's an English professor at eku. That is the answer. But so I wasn't like, fully aware of, like, you know, Jews are good with money. I was like, I don't. I don't know. Like, we're pretty, like lower middle class, like, run of the mill.

[Mike Pesca]

You're like, damn, that one.

[Ariel Elias]

I don't know. Yeah, pretty much. I just wasn't. I just didn't know. I really think I learned most of it from Law and Order of like.

[Mike Pesca]

Any of those things where you pick it up. You pick it up on the street.

[Ariel Elias]

New York taught me.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. You also know that if someone is accused of murder and you go to talk to a guy at Duane Reade about it, he won't stop stocking the shelves while discussing this possible murder. Like, yeah, I don't know. Just saw him the other day on 23rd Street.

[Ariel Elias]

It's actually the only time he's stocking the shelves. He'll only do it when a detective comes in.

[Mike Pesca]

He'll still diss the person who asks where the, you know, Tang is. He'll feel like, I don't know the Tang.

[Ariel Elias]

What a pool.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, well, you know, I'm really into astronauts. Trying to bring it back. No.

[Ariel Elias]

Okay.

[Mike Pesca]

That's the only Tang association I had. I was going to go with tab, and I quickly in my brain shifted from the TA and TAB to Tang. Do New Yorkers then. Now you're dealing with an older set of people because you are an adult. Do they actually have more offensive ideas about Kentucky? Not just, bless their hearts, they're ignorant and childish offensive ideas about where you came from than the Kentuckians did about you.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, I remember when I started looking at colleges and I left Kentucky to do that. And people when they.

[Mike Pesca]

It's no need to. From what I understand, you got your Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, you got your ku, you got your There's a Kentucky Wesleyan, I think. I think they named most of the Kentucky universities.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, there's. There's a few more, but you got Louisville. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

But I remember when we, you know, Berea.

[Mike Pesca]

Shit.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. Which is a great school, but they. When. When we would go to other places and they would find out, you know, my mom would be on these tours with me, and they would say, you know, where are you from? And we'd say, kentucky. And people would make, like, a stink face, and they'd be like, kentucky, wow. Especially if they found out we were Jewish, too. It was like, why would you. And, like, my family would do this, too. Like, my grandparents would be like, I don't know what you're doing in Kentucky. And it feels very like. Well, I can make fun of it, but, like, you need to shut the fuck up. Like, you don't know it. You can't. You can't say that. It's like, you're not necessarily wrong, but, like, you don't know why you're not wrong.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, where are Noni and Zeta from.

[Ariel Elias]

Grandma and Pop up and Nona and Nono.

[Mike Pesca]

Nona.

[Ariel Elias]

Okay. No, no, no, no.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, very good.

[Ariel Elias]

Nonna. Nonono. They were all, like, from. Basically from New Jersey. And then before that, your typical. Like, my mom's side of the family is, you know, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, depending on the time and the. And then my dad's family is from, like, Spain, Greece. We're little Sephardic Jews.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, that's awesome. So Galicia, this is the area of Poland and Ukraine and Russia that keeps changing hands. So because of the Spanish ancestry, you were able to become a Spanish citizen. Yeah. So congratulations.

[Ariel Elias]

Thank you.

[Mike Pesca]

Was this a. It was an escape plan. Well, that's how you put it in the special.

[Ariel Elias]

Spain passed this law where if you could prove that your ancestors were kicked out during the Inquisition, you could get Spanish citizenship. So I did that. I have Spanish citizenship because I think it's so important to have a backup plan. And that's not really hyperbole, because I got my Spanish citizenship. I took my oath on January 6, 2021. I swear, that was my morning. I took my oath. And here's the thing. It had been a really long process, and I didn't know what was going to happen later that day. So I celebrated January 6th. I threw myself a little party. I took a picture of myself being really happy, and then I posted it to social media. It was like three hours before the insurrection. I didn't know what was gonna happen. And if that Was the end of the story. Fine. But social media does this thing where they like to give you memories. So now every January 6th, I just get a reminder of how happy I looked on January 6. And the caption that I wrote does not help. Okay. The caption that I wrote was, today we have righted one of history's greatest injustices.

[Mike Pesca]

You're allowed to. You're allowed to have some sort of leeway for humor. But was that really it?

[Ariel Elias]

Kind of, yeah. I think every Jew has in the back of their mind, like, where do we go in case.

[Mike Pesca]

And the answer is Spain. That's a new one.

[Ariel Elias]

I mean, that's. You know, once you get the EU passport, you can kind of go anywhere in Europe.

[Mike Pesca]

It doesn't have to.

[Ariel Elias]

Just.

[Mike Pesca]

My friend did the same thing with Poland. Poland. The Jews going back to Poland, which is what some of the Tiki torchbearers requested of the Jews. So did it give you anything other than. And I won't step on the great humor around this in the special, but did it give you anything other than peace of mind? Were there any tangible benefits to now being a member of the EU and a Spaniard?

[Ariel Elias]

It's like, the tangible benefits that come with it. I hope I never have to use.

[Mike Pesca]

Sure.

[Ariel Elias]

Which is like leaving.

[Libsyn Ads Voice]

Yes.

[Ariel Elias]

I will still travel on an American passport whenever I am traveling for. For comedy or whatever. Just because it's like, what am I doing?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Also, much to my mom's chagrin, I. Even though I have citizenship, I haven't gotten the passport yet.

[Mike Pesca]

Like, the actual physical.

[Ariel Elias]

Actual physical passport. Because I have to, like, go to the embassy and make an appointment, and I just don't feel like doing it. And also, I have anxiety that for some reason that I think they're going to yell at me. I don't know why, but I do.

[Mike Pesca]

It's been five and a half years.

[Ariel Elias]

I know.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. We could date it.

[Ariel Elias]

Well, for a while, I was like, well, Covid. Like, I can't go in because of COVID And now it's like, no, this is just me not wanting to do anything bureaucratic.

[Mike Pesca]

Were you one of those people who found some silver linings in the oppressiveness of COVID Oh, yeah. The fact that you couldn't leave.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, I did great. I thrived.

[Mike Pesca]

Thrived. Yes.

[Ariel Elias]

It was like, aside from all the death, it was so nice to just have a break.

[Mike Pesca]

That's an asterisk. We're not saying that's not a big.

[Ariel Elias]

I'm not saying that.

[Mike Pesca]

Like, big, heavy asterisk.

[Ariel Elias]

Huge Asterisk.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, yes, exactly. So we're not downplaying the nature, the font size of the asterisk. But.

[Ariel Elias]

But, man, was it so nice to just, like, get high and hang out at home.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you hang? Were you married then?

[Ariel Elias]

No, I got married in May of 2021.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay. So that was, like, as Covid was breaking or. It was.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

We, like, if you lived in New York, a big lockdown place, the lockdowns were pretty much over. Except in certain public schools, right?

[Ariel Elias]

Yes. And we knew. We got. We had a very small wedding. It was just our immediate family, and we knew that our. Our parents, like the oldest people at our wedding, would all be vaccinated by then, because that's who got it first. And so we just did it in my brother and sister in law's backyard. My sister in law made it look really nice.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And that was another great thing. I don't want to plan a party. I don't know how to do that. And so we just, like, sent out a zoom link, and then we were like, you don't have to send gifts, but if you do, here's our address.

[Mike Pesca]

Now, a second ago, you used the phrase, I travel for comedy, which is true, but it's also kind of funny. You know, I travel for business. Comedy being your business, sure, that's great. I travel for comedy. Yeah, but you also travel comedically. Like, when you travel, comedy ensues. And one of the reasons is that your favorite mode of travel is. Which airlines?

[Ariel Elias]

Southwest.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

I do hate flying. That's, like, a thing I have to do a lot for comedy is fly. I think part of why I hate it so much is I usually fly Southwest. Do you guys fly Southwest or you're doing well? It's tough, man. I fly it because it's a good deal. Right. If you're not familiar on Southwest, you get two free checked bags. The only catch is, you'll never see them again. It's the most expensive way to take out the trash, actually. So you pack it up and you buy a ticket. If you've ever asked the question, can an airline have clinical depression? Southwest is here to answer. Yeah, we sure can. We sure can. I can't think of any other explanation for them because they act like me trying to get out of a party where they'll be like, I'm sorry, guys, but I think I'm gonna cancel. And you're like, why? What's wrong? And they're like, oh, nothing. Really. It's far. I don't feel like going, ugh. But they got rid of the thing that I love, which is two free checked bags. They don't do it anymore. And the whole point to do it was like, that's why you flew Southwest. And of course the only catch is you'll never see them again. But like I loved flying Southwest for that reason. And so now I'm just like a Delta babe.

[Mike Pesca]

But have you. Yeah, like a basic Delta bitch.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Unbelievable. Were you. So did you actually do okay? I'm getting a picture of you of going. Getting the EU passport, but not actually following through on the paperwork. Getting a little bit of a picture. Cuz on the one hand you did. You seemed highly functional but loving Covid. So did you do the math to find if though the check bags were free? Was the overall net cost of ticket and checked bags still a saving versus a Delta type flight? Are you sure?

[Ariel Elias]

It depends on where you're going.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Depends on where you're going. If you're. If you're flying to your New Orleans is. Yes, it is cheaper to just go on Southwest.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. To msy.

[Ariel Elias]

Also, like brag, brag. But now I have Delta status, so my bag is also free.

[Mike Pesca]

You never thought of that? If you had just, you know, sucked it up and bit the bullet. No more cliches. But flew on a real airlines, you could have gotten status.

[Ariel Elias]

But now I have it. Now I've done. Now I've done it. Southwest has pushed me away.

[Mike Pesca]

Do you feel that you carved out pretty much a unique niche in not making fun of spirit airlines, being the one comedian who doesn't do that?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, look, I don't value myself like that highly, but I do value myself too much to fly spirit. I did. I. You know what it is? It's like I don't like feeling duped. And I think spirit's whole thing is they want to dupe you into thinking that you're paying less, but then they'll get you on every little thing, everything. And I, I like, I'm fine with it being shitty, but I just want to like, you need to know that it's shitty too. Like, let's all just be. Let's put our cards on the table.

[Mike Pesca]

And spiritually it costs like $5 extra if you fold it down.

[Ariel Elias]

Do you know Tom Takar's joke about flying Spirit?

[Mike Pesca]

Tell me.

[Ariel Elias]

He goes, I'm sorry, I might butcher it a little bit, but he talks about like it's so ch. Fly Spirit. He goes, it's so cheap that even if the plane crashes, you're like, still pretty good deal.

[Mike Pesca]

I've never flown spirit without the lyrics of Master of the House in my mind again and again. 5.5% for looking in the window twice. Tom Takara's joke about flying spirit. So it's not hacked to make fun of spirit, because all comedians make fun of spirit, and you basically collect different jokes. There's a good such a thing as a great spirit joke because they're all terrible.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. I don't think that there's any topic that's hacked.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, Right.

[Ariel Elias]

I think that's a fallacy. I think there are jokes that are hack. But if you're coming at it with your own unique experience, which you should be, because that's the whole point of this, then inevitably you'll find a unique angle. And if you can't find a unique angle, then it's not worth talking about.

[Mike Pesca]

So the real thing that's hack is the complaint of something being hacked?

[Ariel Elias]

I think so, yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So you mentioned New Orleans, and I did a little research, and I found out that you majored in Spanish. Right. At Tulane. Now, your father is from Spain or.

[Ariel Elias]

Just of Spanish extraction, of Spanish descent.

[Mike Pesca]

So did he speak Spanish in the home?

[Ariel Elias]

No.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, okay. So I thought it was one of those things, because I had a friend in college who's pretty much fully, malefluently bilingual, so he decided to major in Spanish, which is just. It's not like us majoring in English. It's just cheating, essentially.

[Ariel Elias]

No. So not only does dad not speak Spanish, I mean, his. His dad and grandmother spoke. They didn't speak Spanish either. They spoke ladino.

[Mike Pesca]

So I don't know what language is that.

[Ariel Elias]

Ladino is like. Like what the Sephardic Jews speak. So it's like, you know, like, a lot of Jews speak Yiddish, which is basically a combination of, like, Hebrew and German.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

Ladino is like Hebrew and Spanish with, like, a little bit of Arabic mixed in.

[Mike Pesca]

I like that. Is there, like, lidinglish? Are there any linguish words? There's so many Yiddish words in English. Right.

[Ariel Elias]

I know there's a Hanukkah song called Ocho Candalecas do it, because candaleca is the word for candles in ladina.

[Mike Pesca]

Do you know how? No.

[Ariel Elias]

It's like. It's like reggaeton. It's like ocha canda de cas. Candale. Cas.

[Mike Pesca]

Because as you point out in the special, you got to do something this verse up.

[Ariel Elias]

Hanukkah, the first Jewish miracle, all of my friends learned, was the miracle of Hanukkah. The Miracle of Hanukkah sucks. It's not a good miracle. It's super lame. The miracle of Hanukkah. What we're actually celebrating is that the oil lasted for eight days when it was only supposed to last for one day. Ta da. God, I hate that miracle. First of all, I don't believe in that miracle because men wrote that down, and men are always lying, saying it lasted longer than it really did. Second of all, what a terrible miracle for Jews to celebrate that the oil lasted for eight days when it was only supposed to last for one day. Because to me, that just sounds like we're celebrating that we got a deal on oil.

[Mike Pesca]

It is a lame, lame holiday.

[Ariel Elias]

It's a lame miracle.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. It's a lame miracle.

[Ariel Elias]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you don't even get into. There's, like, a lot of ethnic cleansing alleged with the Maccabees back in the day.

[Ariel Elias]

Wait, really?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. They were.

[Ariel Elias]

They did it. But they were doing.

[Mike Pesca]

They were a radical. They were a radical sect. Let's just put it this way. Exactly.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, no.

[Mike Pesca]

So that's why days two through seven, I was happy with underwear. And that was it. Because you can't really exalt the money.

[Ariel Elias]

You don't want to celebrate it too much.

[Mike Pesca]

Then there are the Maccabee Games, which is the big Jewish Olympics. I don't know if that got to you.

[Ariel Elias]

Down in Kentucky, we did a youth group version of it. I remember that. I remember we did one that I always loved was sock wrestling.

[Mike Pesca]

What?

[Ariel Elias]

I think I made it through the bracket, and then I lost in the finals.

[Mike Pesca]

So you did a lot of Jewish things in Kentucky. You went to synagogue and you were in youth groups and things like that?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Do you know if that version, the Kentucky version of that was different from what you would have experienced in New Jersey? So, I mean, just the youth group version.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, I think so. Because it's like when I. The first time, when I moved to. When I went to college in New Orleans at Tulane. Tulane's, like, such a Jewish place, I've heard. And I am. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Jewish son's going there.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, really?

[Mike Pesca]

Like three weeks.

[Ariel Elias]

Hey, congratulations. There you go.

[Mike Pesca]

He's half Jewish.

[Ariel Elias]

I didn't like that. I remember, like, meeting other Jews, and I would get so excited, and I had to learn to, like, tamp it down. Cause they were like, yeah, who cares? Like, we're all fucking Jewish. So I think if I had grown up, not where I did, it wouldn't have felt as special, and it wouldn't have felt as necessary like the youth group of it was like, I have to do this because I want to like hook up with God. You know what I mean? How else do I meet Jewish boys?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you are allowed to. Not by your parents, but who asked them permission? I mean, you have hooked up with some, you know, Episcopalian and I did.

[Ariel Elias]

But it still, it was like, it felt different to like kiss a Jewish boy. You know what I mean?

[Mike Pesca]

No, I don't. Literally, I can tell you.

[Ariel Elias]

You should try it. It's really nice. No, I don't know. I think also like in Kentucky there's, there is this like a lot of the, the girls my age and like the women, they're like, they look like cheerleaders, right? They're like blonde hair, blue eyed, like, you know, like pretty traditionally thin. This whole, this whole like girl next door look that I never felt like I had. Like, I always like, my hair was a little frizzy. I didn't really know what products to put in it. Still haven't really mastered that. But like, you know, I'm, I, I have this joke in the special about how like I'm built for the old country. Like. No, that I'm built for the old country. Right. I'm Jewish on both sides. I get, I'm built for. If the ox died, I could, could pull the cart that applause hurts. Don't clap at that one. And that just like was never, it felt like it was never outwardly desirable to the, to like a good old boy.

[Mike Pesca]

Uh huh. Right.

[Ariel Elias]

So in order for me, which in.

[Mike Pesca]

Practical terms that literally should be what, a guy who's a farmer.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, but there's a very big difference between what men say they want and what men actually want in a woman. Like what they'll publicly say that they want is like a small girl. And then they'll be in your DMs like, oh my God, you're like the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen. And meanwhile the comment they leave is like, you fat piece of shit. Same guy. Yeah, same guy. Same guy.

[Mike Pesca]

So how's that going to work in terms of game? Because I'm, I'm confused.

[Ariel Elias]

I think like, okay, I can't get totally in the mindset of a man and wouldn't want to. But I think that there's this idea that it's like a negging thing. Like they're like, well, her self esteem is probably low.

[Mike Pesca]

Gotcha.

[Ariel Elias]

So I'll just, I'll get in there.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, they watch the MTV show with mystery.

[Ariel Elias]

I loved that show.

[Mike Pesca]

That was pretty good.

[Ariel Elias]

What a throwback. I haven't thought about that show in so long.

[Mike Pesca]

You haven't been hit on by a guy doing Bargain Basement. Close.

[Ariel Elias]

Magic Dora. But so I think, like, for me, like, going to youth group, it was like, there are girls who look like me, and there are guys who aren't embarrassed to be seen with me is how it felt, even if that's not how it actually was. That was my perception.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, so you. You're. You're acknowledging you may have brought that to it.

[Ariel Elias]

Sure.

[Mike Pesca]

And you didn't receive any overt antisemitism. Right. But when you live in a certain world and you inherently see yourself as an outsider and you get a lot of signals that you are. This is your experience.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. And, like, it would be things where, like, in New York, a big thing that I've noticed is, like, every single cultural holiday, schools are closed because they don't want anybody to feel like lunar New Year.

[Mike Pesca]

And everyone.

[Ariel Elias]

Everyone. And it's such a beautiful thing that they do, because I remember every Rosh Hashanah, every Yom Kippur school had just started, like, two weeks before.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

So you're not even in the swing of things. And then I would have to miss school for these holidays, and it was just like, oh, me and the two other Jewish kids in my high school were gone.

[Mike Pesca]

I'm gonna use the word othered.

[Ariel Elias]

You feel othered for sure. Or like, you know, I remember getting invited to this guy's dance, but it was the first night of Passover, and my mom, like, wouldn't let me miss it, which she was. Right.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. But could have been a leavened opportunity there for you.

[Ariel Elias]

It could have been what, leavened Some leavened temptations? No, I think it was more just about like we were hosting Seder, and you have to be at Seder. But so, like, these little things where it's like, it's not necessarily antisemitism, it's just that being Jewish is not. Anything about that is not even registering to whoever's making the plans. And I get it. We're such a small percentage of the population. But in New York, that would never be the case.

[Mike Pesca]

No. Plus, in New York, there is, which they don't have as much in Kentucky. The alternate side of the street parking consideration.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, that's not a thing at all.

[Mike Pesca]

No. But, like, that's another reason why the holidays are so celebrated. Like, we're a pluralist people who welcome others, but also, we don't like to have to move our cars yeah, yeah. Let's pause it for a second, take a quick break and we'll be back with more in a minute. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

[Jeffrey]

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

[Dennis]

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

[Jeffrey]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you. Teach me. So Dennis.

[Dennis]

Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.

[Jeffrey]

Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

[Ariel Elias]

Nice.

[Dennis]

Jeffrey, you heard them.

[Jeffrey]

T Mobile is the best place to.

[Mike Pesca]

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on.

[Jeffrey]

Apple plus with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for launch?

[Dennis]

Dude, my work here is done.

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[Mike Pesca]

We'Re back with more funny. You should mention this whole milieu that you describe. And by the way, the concepts like white supremacy, what are we talking about? I take issue with it here and there, but the basic idea of without even thinking about the waters that you swim in. An outsider would notice that the waters are a bit different for them. It is a perfect breeding ground for observational comedy, is it not?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, totally.

[Mike Pesca]

And is that where you think it came from?

[Ariel Elias]

For sure, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

But also being Jewish, there are funny people from what I understand.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. Also I, I always talk about like with being Jewish all of our holidays, we, we really, it's like oral tradition stuff and we really emphasize telling the story of what happened. And inevitably when you tell the same story over and over again every year and everybody knows the punchlines, you start punching it up.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Ariel Elias]

Like you make little sarcastic, you make little like comments under your breath and, and I think that's also a big part of where it comes from.

[Mike Pesca]

So the outsider status. Do you. Do you. Do you. When you look back and maybe you try to think about, is this where my comedic instincts come from? Is it that you were kind of an anthropologist noticing things that others didn't, or was it more of the expressive part of it, that this was an outlet for you to express yourself?

[Ariel Elias]

I think it's both. For sure, it's both. You spend so much time explaining yourself growing up that inevitably you're like, oh, well, how do I take this thing that kind of feels a little bit like a burden and turn it into a career, basically? And it's this thing that I've gotten good at of being like, here's who I am. Here's where I'm coming from. Here's the thing about me you might be noticing, just so you know. And then also, yeah, you're seeing what the popular culture is and realizing that you're not part of it, which allows you to see what's silly about it or what's ridiculous or what's hypocritical, which is inherently comedy.

[Mike Pesca]

So the word you used is explaining yourself. That unlocks something for me. Your comedy is explanatory in many ways. That seems unfun, but you don't do. You don't do voices. You don't bounce around the stage. You kind of want the audience to understand what you're saying.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And then maybe be an 8th second behind you on the punchline. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

My comedy is very like. I just want to explain to you how I got here.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

It's very, like, freeze frame. You might be wondering.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And I'm like, here's the story and what I've noticed. So I have this special coming out.

[Mike Pesca]

It's out now, which.

[Ariel Elias]

It's out now. Yeah. A Jewish Star, which is. It's my first special. It's like my first body of work, which is all very, like, here's who I am, here's how I got here. Here's the things that, you know, were, like, unique about my upbringing and what I've noticed now that that's done and I'm writing new material that I don't feel like I have to do that as much anymore. And it's becoming a lot more like, here are my thoughts and here's my take on this, as opposed to, like, here's how I got here, which is both, like, terrifying and freeing.

[Mike Pesca]

That's what. So Roy Wood said this, the first special, is essentially the best of everything you've been doing. For how long have you been doing it? 10 years?

[Ariel Elias]

14.

[Mike Pesca]

14 years. Lot to draw from the next special. Especially if this one's hot and they want a new one and the 800 pound gorilla leans on you. You got about a year to turn it around. There used to be more. Right. So yeah, it's a little bit of pressure, but still it's freeing. Right. Because it doesn't have to be biographical.

[Ariel Elias]

Right. And the idea, you hope at least is that now there are people coming to see you who already know you.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

So you have a little bit more room to play. It's not just like tight, tight, tight, tight.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. I've seen you in the cellar and I think this is my recollection. It was a while ago. You have jokes in the special about your name. Is that because you would start your set, the emcee would say now Ariel Elias. And like the first thing you would say, maybe the second thing is, yes, my name is Arielle. Is that how it usually starts with a small short set?

[Ariel Elias]

The way that it started for me, the jokes about my name was that. I think the. Your first jokes are the conversations that you have the most in life.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

And my name is Ariel. So in. So inherently the. The response that I would always get was, oh, like the Little Mermaid. I was also a swimmer, so it was just right there.

[Mike Pesca]

It's all there. Best friend was Sebastian.

[Ariel Elias]

No, I refused.

[Mike Pesca]

He was Jamaican. Dude always wore red.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. I was like really mean to the Jamaican exchange student in high school and nobody could figure out why.

[Mike Pesca]

Just to make the point. Yeah, Just to establish her own identity.

[Rubrik AI Agent Voice]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

But so the. One of the first jokes that I wrote that I was happy with, and I don't think it's on the special. Cause I. It just felt too old and didn't feel like me anymore. But it was about like the Little Mermaid. Like, you know, being compared to the Little Mermaid and how mass. You know, Disney. But they don't do things right, whatever. So once I got tired of that joke, I remember my best friend's dad really did call me Earl. Just like, that's his accent. He's like from the mountains. And I remember as a kid going to see him and my friend was like, why do you call her Earl? And he'd be like, that's her name, isn't it? So that was in the back of my head. And then I remember watching another comedian on stage who just said the word Earl. And I Was like, oh, that's funny. That's like what they called me in high school. And then it just kind of clicked and then it was like my favorite joke that I had written.

[Mike Pesca]

So in a club like the Comedy Cellar, where they do. What do they call it? Showcase. Showcase clubs. 20 minutes.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, that's all clubs in New York.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, okay.

[Ariel Elias]

All clubs in New York are showcase shows.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, Right. Which was the one in Times Square that Caroline's.

[Ariel Elias]

Caroline's used to do. Yeah, they used to do headliners.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. In a 20 minute set. Does. Is there sufficient time lag to do that low simmer between the first Earl mention and the second Earl mention and the callback to it as shows up maybe a half hour later in a Jewish start.

[Ariel Elias]

So there is in a 20 minute set. But it's not as satisfying.

[Mike Pesca]

It's never you or that.

[Ariel Elias]

I don't know, I never even considered them. I guess to me, fuck them. It's not as. It's just when I find that when there is more time between the introduction and the callback, it just. It's like. Cause it catches people so off guard.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

It's so fun. And that's like the best comedy.

[Mike Pesca]

So I have noticed. Take this, take this as a compliment that while you talk about everything, there are subjects. I don't know if they make you uncomfortable, but there are a couple of punchlines in the special that are joke about sex. And it seems like, you know, this is the right punchline to say. But you don't hit the audience over the head with. In fact, you back up a little. You back off a little and like say the words. So they could appreciate him if they want, but you don't want necessarily to, you know, embrace that. Do you know about the. Do you know what I'm talking about? I wrote them down. So one is. And that's what makes me come. The desperate. Yeah. And another was that's what makes me come. Sounds like college all over again.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Which was. What was that about? I just wrote the punchline down.

[Ariel Elias]

That one. It's about. It's this joke I have about circumcision about it's a crazy decision to make for somebody you just met. Cause it's like I don't even know his name yet and you want me to figure out what to do with his dick. It just feels like college all over again.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So when you say that right, you're not punching it. You could maybe get a bigger reaction. The way you say that is all right. This is the right Joke to say in this place. But I don't want to say embarrassed, but maybe my mom's watching.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, my mom is for sure watching my mom.

[Mike Pesca]

So is that why you don't hard sell it? No pun intended.

[Ariel Elias]

I don't even think it's just her. It's like, okay, I'm so grateful for the Jewish community I grew up with. They are so proud of me. It's very sweet. But it's like everybody, every Sunday school and Hebrew school teacher I've ever had are watching every clip. So there is, you know, and I perform at a lot of synagogues. I don't do that joke, but I think because of it, it's sort of evolved a little bit into being like, oh, I'm performing for like 65 year old Jews.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Who we're like, yeah. I don't know. And it's so. I. I think part of it also, and this goes to what we were saying before about like the first special is all of these jokes that you've worked on for this decade is like, that feels like a joke that I wrote before I was married. And now it's like, well, that's not, you know, it's still me. Like, that's still part of my past.

[Mike Pesca]

And it's before your husband and all of you.

[Ariel Elias]

It's before my husband, but it also, it feels like a little farther away. Which is like the other exciting part about the new material that's coming is it's not something that I wrote when I was 25, 26.

[Mike Pesca]

What about the circumcision material? Does that play well in Temple Beth Shalom?

[Ariel Elias]

Depends.

[Mike Pesca]

Depends. Reform or Conservative? What does it depend on?

[Ariel Elias]

Actually, it does.

[Mike Pesca]

Tell me.

[Ariel Elias]

Reform. Very fun.

[Mike Pesca]

That's like the Friday late.

[Ariel Elias]

I grew up conservative. I will say that I grew up conservative.

[Mike Pesca]

Why have a Reform temple in Kentucky.

[Ariel Elias]

At all that seems there is a Reform temple. There is a Reformed temple, but I grew up at the Conservative one. And yes, the Reform crowds, they're more likely to drink. It also depends on where in the synagogue you're performing. If they put you in the social hall, great. If they put you in the sanctuary, Very different vibe, of course, because you're like, where people daven and the ark is behind you. Every now and then I'll tell a joke and turn around to the arc and be like, sorry, Next.

[Mike Pesca]

Coming up to the beam of. Put your hands together.

[Ariel Elias]

It's a very different vibe.

[Mike Pesca]

How could it not that? That's comedy death. And I don't know, maybe there's A Chris Rock could probably do it. He's essentially a preacher. Right.

[Ariel Elias]

I mean, I think I can do.

[Mike Pesca]

It, but it seems intimidating. It seems like the stakes are high.

[Ariel Elias]

It's different. It's just very different.

[Mike Pesca]

It's some Old Testament shit.

[Ariel Elias]

It is Old Testament shit. Yeah. It's very different if you're in the social hall versus the sanctuary. So I think that I started, maybe this was three or four years ago, I started trying to be more intentional about writing cleaner because I wanted to be able to work this circuit a little bit more.

[Mike Pesca]

But it seems like you have tons of clean material. I don't think of you as mostly sexual comic. You're not a gross out comic or anything like that? No.

[Ariel Elias]

And so then when I do dabble into it, part of it is. I think you're right. I think I have a little bit of a lack of comfort with it. And then part of it is also aware of my audience and aware of how they see me. But I am always. It's so funny. Cause I have this newer joke about discovering porn when I was 12. And whenever I tell it, people fully pull away from me. But I always. I found myself lately trying to channel Caitlin Palufo when I tell it, because she's so good at just being sexual and in the funniest way possible and.

[Mike Pesca]

Owning that and dervish and bouncing around the stage.

[Ariel Elias]

Yes. And so I find myself like, you know, I'll watch her sometimes just destroy these audiences. And I'm trying to. Eventually I would like to, of course, be able to just do it in my voice, but for now I'm borrowing hers a little bit.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, just. I was speaking of the voice when I was interviewing Steph Tolev. She does a different voice that she didn't even realize, like.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, really?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. She'll sometimes talk like this.

[Ariel Elias]

She didn't know she does that.

[Mike Pesca]

She didn't really know. Well, maybe I think she knows she does that, but she doesn't know why she does that. And then she was like, really? I do that. I'm like, you do that all the time. Maybe that a distancing mechanism. I don't know. I'm not saying you could try something like that out. The other thing with Palufo or people like that is it's a whirlwind. Right. And to get to that level of ecstasy in the audience, it's very different from the explanatory comedy that you're trying to do and that you are.

[Ariel Elias]

Yes. That's the hard thing about. Well, one of the Hard things about. About finding your voice is, of course, you're borrowing from other people. You're always borrowing. You see somebody do this thing in this way that's so good, and you go, okay, well, I'll try to be a little bit like that. And eventually you have to figure out how to mold it and shape it and adjust it to you and find out how you would say it.

[Mike Pesca]

Who'd you start off doing that with? And who do you see in yourself still? If we could do the DNA, the.

[Ariel Elias]

Genome, I mean, when I was 21.

[Mike Pesca]

Elias genome.

[Ariel Elias]

When I was 21, starting out, I wanted to be Sarah Silverman also. That was one of the few women who I had access to seeing do stand up.

[Mike Pesca]

Was she doing the character that she's no longer doing, which is like. Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

And were a lot of your jokes that misdirect at the end?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, they were misdirect. They were offensive towards the wrong people. Like, really punching down horrible shit that I would never say now. And I'm so glad that we didn't tape things back then. It was a lot of that. It was. You know, I also. I grew up on Bob and Tom radio. That was like my exposure to comedy. So it was, you know, the influences. It was like a real mix. But also, like, Nikki Glaser got in there, obviously, Amy Schumer, after a few. I think Nikki Glaser, listening to her is how I learned how to write a joke.

[Rubrik AI Agent Voice]

Really?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you read the New York Times article that kind of shadowed her before she hosted the Golden Globes?

[Ariel Elias]

No.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, you gotta read it. She's so. I mean.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, wait, is it her talking about, like, running the set like, a million times? Is it that one that's.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it's by Jason Zinneman. And it just blew my mind about how strategic an artist can be in a great way. Yeah, that was fantastic. And if someone has aspirations to, you know, make it big, this is one way to do it, and that shows what it takes. Now, when you were doing the Sarah Silverman, one aspect of especially that early character is she never said anything she actually believed.

[Ariel Elias]

Right.

[Mike Pesca]

And if she did, it would have ruined everything.

[Ariel Elias]

Right.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. So you seem to have exaggerations, but would you say you almost always say things that you believe?

[Ariel Elias]

Yes. Yes, for sure.

[Mike Pesca]

And is that why? Is that because to interrupt your name is an anagram of a lie is real. You know that, right?

[Ariel Elias]

A lie is real.

[Mike Pesca]

No, of course. Ariel Elias. A lie is real. Do the. Do the unscrambling a lie.

[Ariel Elias]

Is real. Huh. Interesting. No, I've never. I'm not great at anagrams for. For as many puzzles as I like. That's not one of them.

[Mike Pesca]

Wordle yourself.

[Ariel Elias]

Sounds like a real insult. Yeah, Go wordle yourself. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Wor. So why. Why, why are you saying. Why are you spitting Truth? Ariel.

[Ariel Elias]

Gross. I mean, I. Because I'm not doing a character. It's a. You're right. It's an exaggeration of who I am, but it's not a character. I do feel like if. If I don't believe in what I'm saying, why am I saying it? What's the point here then?

[Mike Pesca]

So is there any line. Do you ever come up with a great joke and, like, I just can't really stand by. You gotta find a way to. If it's a great joke, you gotta find a way to say it.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, sometimes it. But I don't know that I would be like, this is a great joke and it's total bullshit. Like, I. I don't think I can hold those two thoughts at the same time. I've definitely written jokes where I'm like, there's nowhere for this to go. And so this will just be a joke that exists and I'll put it on threads or whatever.

[Mike Pesca]

You put it on Twitter? Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Not. I don't use Twitter anymore.

[Mike Pesca]

But is that a stance that you took proactively or because Twitter just stopped working for you?

[Ariel Elias]

It kind of just. Yeah. I mean, I wish I could be like, no, it's because I'm a fully ethical person, so I'm. That's why I'm only switching to meta.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the step up. Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

No, it was just like, it became. It felt like it became very bot filled. It just didn't really feel worth it to me. It felt like a lot of people were leaving. I saw my numbers drop and. And spiritually, I kind of can't handle that.

[Mike Pesca]

What is threads? I mean, I know what it is, but is threads working out for you?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, Threads going well. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Threads Never even think to go to threads.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, a lot of people don't. So it could be going better. Get on Threads, everybody.

[Mike Pesca]

And then there's Blue Sky. Well, where they'll throw a can of beer at you if you voted for Biden because he's not left enough.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, Blue Sky's not going great for me. I'm on there, but nobody is. Nobody knows I'm on there, but I'm on there. But. But. So. Yeah, so. So to get back to jokes and, like, truth and stuff. I do think it's okay to lie in a joke. I don't. I think it's like, don't let. What's. What is it? Don't let the facts get in the way of the truth kind of thing. So like, sometimes.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, I don't think that's the expression.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, it is.

[Mike Pesca]

Don't let the facts get in. Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

So, like, you know, sometimes you'll get into the nitty gritty of the details where it's like, that didn't actually happen. But the point that I'm making feels true still.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. But for instance, you definitely got a rhinestone pepper. Pepper spray. That happened.

[Ariel Elias]

I could tell that happened.

[Mike Pesca]

There's no way to invent that.

[Ariel Elias]

No, my mom really gave me that.

[Mike Pesca]

Of course she did.

[Ariel Elias]

For sure.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. But then certain other facts can be. Did you lose your bags on Southwest? So you pack garbage? No. Okay, there you go. But if you had, it would be. It's an interesting thing to talk about.

[Ariel Elias]

Well, and it was based off of that. There was, like, that period of time where Southwest just, like, fully shit the bed and everybody. It was chaos. So it was, like, based off of that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Tell me about now, this month, this period, to have the very Jewish star, Jewish Forward Judaism in the title. You can't avoid. It's what you talk about of a special that is out there in the world. Extra considerations.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

There is a non. There is a line not connected to punchlines and not connected to a setup where you do say, I'm not ignorant of everything that's going on in the world. And so. Yeah, so the question is my original question. And tell me about the considerations of the line. I'm just interested.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. So it starts. I have a joke about wearing a Jewish star necklace. That's sort of part of where it came from. I also. I did get pushback on naming it that. There were, you know, I had some. Some reps who did not want me to name it that. And I think from their perspect, it was about wanting to protect me from whatever anti Semitism I'm gonna get.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

And my feeling on it is one. I think I'm gonna get it anyway. I think. I don't think that naming it something different. I don't think then people would watch the special and be like, oh, but she's not Jewish. Right. Like, you're still gonna know.

[Mike Pesca]

Commitment to the bit. Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Also, like. Like, there is a lot of shit going on in the world. It's a very complicated issue. I'm still very proud of being Jewish and, like, nothing will change that. I'm very proud of the community that I come from. I'm very proud of, like, how I was brought up. And I think being Jewish played a big part in the empathy that I think I have and the social justice that I feel. It's one of these things where when people see you online and they see that you're visibly Jewish, it's very much like, this group of people wants you to say this. This group of people wants you to say this. And it's like, I don't really think that the Internet is necessarily the place to be. Like, let's discuss the issues of Palestine, Israel and how complicated it is. But when I'm on stage, if I can find a way to discuss in a funny way, like, but why. Why aren't we. Why aren't we just, like, teaming up together against the Christians? Like, why are we fighting each other then? Like, that, to me, feels like I'm conveying who I am. And I do think, like, who I want to convey to the world is that, like, I'm a fucking Jewish star.

[Mike Pesca]

And the point of comedy is to communicate, to make the people laugh by communicating to the audience who you are. And if even people with your best interests at heart convinced you to run away from that, that itself would be, you know, that would be a bad thing. That would be a deleterious act. And it would be in some way an act of anti Semitism, actually.

[Ariel Elias]

Sure.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Well, it would be an act of fear.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And I understand why some people would act out of fear, but I also think that's kind of why we got into this mess, is everybody's just acting out of fear.

[Mike Pesca]

Does anyone come to you after the show? So you just said, well, first of all, the Internet perhaps a bad place to adjudicate the complexities of the Israel Palestine situation.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, I don't think we should put the Jew and adjudicate online.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, that's what, you know, the good Jews, the learned rabbis will be adjudicated. All right. Right. But the comedy stage is too, or can be too. And none of your humor is about Israel, Palestine, from what I could see. But does anyone ever come up after you who, after the show and talk to you who isn't Jewish or in the Jewish community and say anything about that you've opened my eyes, or, hey, that was really an interesting way to spend time. And I never, ever thought about it that way.

[Ariel Elias]

Anybody who's not Jewish who's done that? I don't. I mean, there are people, like I.

[Mike Pesca]

Say Temple Beth Shalom. Does any non Jewish? You know.

[Ariel Elias]

My favorite is when people who aren't Jewish come up to me and they're like, I love that my friend growing up was Jewish.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

I'm like, okay, cool, cool, cool thing. I, you know, I. I don't know that I'm doing, like, the super hard hitting. Like, really makes you think, huh? Like, that's not.

[Mike Pesca]

You do have one dumb thinker in the.

[Ariel Elias]

I have a couple dumb ones.

[Mike Pesca]

It's a dumb figure. Is it really a figure or does it just take a little while to get at the dots?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, no, some of them. Some of the things that I write are really fucking stupid. But I think that's also, like, fun. Unnecessary.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. Are you gonna do. Have you done comedy about this thing? I read where you went to Cuba as part of your studies.

[Ariel Elias]

That's so interesting. I haven't delved into. I studied abroad in Cuba for four months.

[Mike Pesca]

What time period was that permissible?

[Ariel Elias]

It was during. So this was. This happened during the first Obama administration.

[Mike Pesca]

That's when it would have been. Yeah, right.

[Ariel Elias]

And it was. It was before. So Obama in his second term, normalized relations with Cuba, which have since been. That's been undone.

[Mike Pesca]

But abnormalized.

[Ariel Elias]

Abnormalized. Unnormalized. I know. I couldn't think of the word. But before he fully normalized them, he started opening up, up to certain schools and religious organizations to be able to start having a little bit of Tulane's.

[Mike Pesca]

Kind of both.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, kind of. Well, New Orleans is a sister city of Havana.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, did not know that.

[Ariel Elias]

And Tulane has one of the. One of the biggest and the best Latin American studies programs in the country and also a Spanish program in the country. And because I was a. There were. It was like, very difficult to go to Cuba. You had to be a Spanish major. You had to have a higher gpa. Brag, brag, brag. You had to pass a language test. They had to do like a full interview because it's like, are you prepared to be isolated?

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

Like, really isolated for four months and live under a dictatorship regime? Because there are different rules there. You can't just say shit. So they had to really make sure.

[Mike Pesca]

And if, you know. And if you're feeling oppressed, you can't apply for EU citizenship via your Spanish heritage at that point.

[Ariel Elias]

No, couldn't do that.

[Mike Pesca]

Now I have to say, of the four higher requirements to go to Cuba, that third one you have to special pass a language test. I stand by that. I think that's good.

[Ariel Elias]

Well, also, like, you're going into Cuba. People there don't speak English like in other countries. They speak English.

[Mike Pesca]

Part of a decades long embargo.

[Ariel Elias]

Correct. They'll speak Russian.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. But they don't speak English named Vladimir. So we're, we're. Or given all this, did hilarity ensue?

[Ariel Elias]

Maybe. I mean, there were certain things, I think, to be honest, I've blocked out a lot of that experience.

[Mike Pesca]

Blocked out? Why? Was it traumatic?

[Ariel Elias]

It was really difficult. It was really, really hard. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Even with the. Not because of language, for other reasons?

[Ariel Elias]

Well, the language at first, like I spoke Spanish going in, but it's, it's, you know, it's island Spanish. It's very, very different. And it's also under a dictatorship, so they, they speak in code too. There's like, there's like euphemisms for everything. So you're really trying to figure out. It took two months before I understood anybody and before they understood me.

[Mike Pesca]

Were you with others in your program?

[Ariel Elias]

There were four other kids from my school and then there were a couple of other programs. We all stayed in this residence for foreign journalists. So it was like heavily monitored, like heavily watched by, by the military and the police. There was, but it was, it was really difficult. It was like, you know, we all, we all lost so much weight because we were hungry. Like, it was hard. Food was genuinely hard to come by. Wow. So it was, it's interesting, I have thought a couple of times about, like, how do I make jokes about this and talk about this? I think there's part of it that feels like it's not really mine to joke about and to talk about because I, I was truly there for four months, 15 years ago. So it feels a little like I don't, I don't want to talk about something in a way that, that just doesn't feel like it's mine.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

But it is interesting that the effect of oppression wasn't just out there. Like you felt it acutely on a daily basis. And so does that change at all when people talk about, you know, America's becoming an autocracy? Do you. I guess there are ways you could go with that. One is, yeah, and I know how bad that is. Or two is I lived under a real autocracy. And, you know, the fact that you have to like give your age to get on a porn site now is not quite autocracy.

[Ariel Elias]

No. It's the first one. I'm like, you're right. We're head there. Yeah, yeah. These are. I think people also, like, they forget when they talk about, like, you know, there are some people who are like, you know, Trump is basically Hitler.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And people are like, all right, whatever, you know, like, I don't think those people are saying he's Hitler in 1941. I think they're saying he's Hitler in, like, 1930. Like, there's like a whole, like, post art school, right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, yes.

[Ariel Elias]

There's like a whole.

[Mike Pesca]

It's not your whole pooch type. You know, it's in the air.

[Ariel Elias]

I get it. And again, these are not a good.

[Mike Pesca]

Hitler, by the way.

[Ariel Elias]

It's not a great Hitler. It's not. It's not A plus Hitler.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

So it's this idea of, like, again, like, this is where, like, the nuance, I think, gets lost online a little bit when people just, like, throw that stuff out there. There. But I think living in. Being in Cuba for. For those four months, I think it also made me aware of how much propaganda we're all exposed to here, because it's. I mean, it's like, obviously there's like, the blanket propaganda in Cuba with, like, all of the. All of the billboards and all of that stuff, but you would also feel it in. In. In these other ways, and you can see how. How people can fall for it and. Or. Or even just like. Like how a populist regime can. Can hold on to its people. And it's like, man, I really wish we could also get the free health care and the 99% literacy rate. That'd be dope.

[Mike Pesca]

Our literacy rate's pretty high.

[Ariel Elias]

What's our literacy rate?

[Mike Pesca]

It's like, it's over 99%. Maybe it's 90.

[Ariel Elias]

Unless it's incursive.

[Mike Pesca]

And then they. Well, yeah, then it's two. Or maybe it's two. I can't read cursive. So I did make a mention of. They all throw a beer can at you if you voted for Biden the wrong way. This is because you had this experience where someone heckled you via beer and you caught the beer can after. Did it bounce on?

[Ariel Elias]

I didn't catch it. I didn't catch it.

[Mike Pesca]

But you picked it up after it hit the floor.

[Ariel Elias]

What's your question? Did you vote for Donald Trump? Did I vote for Donald Trump? What do you think? No. Okay, here's the question. Why would you ask me that in here, knowing I'm the only Jew in this room. Are you trying to get me killed? If it makes me feel anybody. I vote in New York. My vote doesn't matter there. It doesn't.

[Mike Pesca]

It doesn't matter here either.

[Ariel Elias]

It doesn't matter, guys. Everybody vote for whoever you want to vote. I don't. I don't care who you voted for. I'm just happy we're all here together. So you voted for Biden? I don't know. Why does it matter? Yeah, so what? Why does it matter? I can just talk.

[Libsyn Ads Voice]

Like your jokes.

[Ariel Elias]

You better provided.

[Mike Pesca]

Why are we talking?

[Ariel Elias]

I can tell by the fact that you're still talking when nobody wants you to that you go to challenge me to stop talking. Yes. Don't yourself. All right, make some noise if you want her to shut up. But I did ask if anyone. Anybody had any questions. I didn't think I was going to be. That's on me. That was on me for thinking I could have a human interaction with somebody. That's my fault. No, look, I'm such an insecure person here. I'll tell you the. I'll tell you the rest of that bit, and then. And then we'll move on. I'm so insecure. I went and got an iud.

[Jeffrey]

Oh, my.

[Ariel Elias]

Oh, come on.

[Mike Pesca]

Are you kidding me? Y. I'm never coming out with this. You will ever again. And then you had the. Would you say it was presence of mind, instinct, Analyze what was going through your thought as an entertainer who had to do something entertaining in that moment?

[Ariel Elias]

My thought was, I remember seeing it, and I remember thinking, would it be funny? I wonder if it would be funny if I picked it up and drank it.

[Mike Pesca]

Only one way to find out.

[Ariel Elias]

Only one way to find out. And when I picked it up, also, like, everybody. Everybody was so distracted looking at these people who were. And were getting kicked out. And I was like, I still have, like, 10 minutes left of my set. This wasn't at the end of the set.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Ariel Elias]

And I was featuring, so I had merch to sell because that's the only way you can make money featuring on the road. And I was like, I have to get to the joke about the merchant to sell the merch to make my gas money back. So.

[Mike Pesca]

From New Jersey. Where in New Jersey?

[Ariel Elias]

Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, that's pretty far down there.

[Ariel Elias]

It's. It's not that far, but in traffic, it's awful.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, yeah, yeah. But this is a place called, like, Uncle Vinny's or something.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

What the hell's going on. It should have maybe been.

[Ariel Elias]

It wasn't shocking. Yeah. And, like, the Uncle Vinnie's logo had, like, it had, like, bullet holes that, like, quote unquote, that had been, like, artistically rendered. And, like, the L, the L was like, like the gun in the Sopranos font. Like, you know, it's not shocking that it happened there.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

But I, I, so I remember thinking with this, would it be funny if I picked it up? And then I, I picked it up and I felt that there was still some in it, and I was like, oh, thank God.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

Because otherwise I'm just gonna have to mime this or crush it against your.

[Mike Pesca]

Forehead, I don't think.

[Ariel Elias]

I don't have the confidence to think I can do that. And so I, I, I waited a second, I picked it up, and I saw that everybody was still looking at the door, and I. More people are looking at you. And so I gave it a second and then I drank it and I milked it a little bit. Like there wasn't a ton left in there, but I made it look like there was more and then set it back down and, yeah, that was it. And I kept going with the set. I think I made a joke about, like, I think I said, like, you know, well, we'll all have this memory of tonight, except for that girl. She's Blackout, obviously.

[Mike Pesca]

And did you do. And then it really went viral. Did you do anything to help it go viral?

[Ariel Elias]

No, no, I, you know.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you put it on your site?

[Ariel Elias]

So that night, I was opening for Gianmarco Cerezi. And so he who, you know, has and always has had a bigger following than me. And so he had tweeted, by the.

[Mike Pesca]

Way, if they don't like you for your politics.

[Ariel Elias]

He was a little less overt then.

[Mike Pesca]

But he's the guy who would hate Biden because he is way to the right.

[Ariel Elias]

Yes, but. So he just kind of tweeted, like, here's what happened. And I think he had. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't have the picture of it, but he, but he just tweeted it out. And I saw that it was like getting. And I was like, well, hold on. You can't. You don't get to. You don't get to take my life.

[Mike Pesca]

His story to tell.

[Ariel Elias]

And I, I had been, I had been filming it. I had just been recording it on my phone. And he also, he, you know, he had his camera set up, and he was like, if you didn't get it, I have it too.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

But so that night I remember, I remember getting home and I woke, I didn't sleep well that night, and I woke up the next morning and I was like, I should just clip this up and put it out. Cause he's tweeted about it. It's already, there's some people who are interested. And I had just taken a little screenshot and posted it and then I just clipped it up real quick and I just put it out. And then 45 minutes later, I opened my phone and I was like, oh, shit. And my husband came home from work and I was like, hey, so something's happening. So that's really, that was really good.

[Mike Pesca]

And it got what, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of views?

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Wow. And you got Kimmel pretty much directly from that, or at least when you were on Kimmel. He explained that.

[Ariel Elias]

No, I saw that he had retweeted it and said something. And so I just replied under it. I said, can I make my late night debut on your show Moxie?

[Mike Pesca]

There you go.

[Ariel Elias]

Thank you. And he said, definitely. And then they were going on hiatus for like two weeks, but then he was like, yeah, come out.

[Mike Pesca]

But it also, and this is not me just being kind, it seems like you, you were at the point in, while you were featuring in New Jersey, but also at the point of your career where material wise, that was quite warranted.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, I think so.

[Mike Pesca]

Like, you have reps and the reps were probably saying even before this, look, we're trying to get you on different late night shows.

[Ariel Elias]

Actually didn't have reps then, but I, I, I was, I had submitted for, for other late night shows a couple of times. I had done jfl, New Face. I have like a couple of things under my belt. I was starting to headline at, you know, these like, rinky dink places where you're losing money just going.

[Mike Pesca]

But, but right. Not the big time. Like Uncle Vinny. Featuring an Uncle Vinny.

[Ariel Elias]

But so I, you know, no, I was doing like, you know, like a converted church in the middle of Pennsylvania. Like, that's where I was headlining, which is a church of satire. You're a great club. Love you so much.

[Mike Pesca]

Church of satire.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, very good. But so, so yes, I would not have asked to come on if I felt like I was not ready to come on. I'm pretty good generally about knowing when I'm ready for something.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

And that's a big part of comedy. Right. It's like knowing when to say yes to the opportunity and when to say no.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, the, when to say no part for a comedian. You know, sometimes they're always told, you always gotta put yourself out there, and you might feel it. People have imposter syndrome. That's probably harder than knowing when to say yes.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. I think more people should know when to say no.

[Mike Pesca]

I agree. So in your special, you do say you think about that a lot, and I believe you because it was a strange thing that happened. It was really important to your career. But do you think it's one of those things where you think about it a lot? Like sometimes the images that we have especially. Well, you're younger. I don't know if this is true for you, but for me, things I think about in my childhood were the things I have photographs of. And there's this memory phenomenon where you actually wind up remembering photographs more than other things. Do you think it's something like that? Since it was.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah, for sure. No, I have to. I kind of have to check myself sometimes to be like, are you remembering watching the video of you or are you remembering actually being on stage?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And so I try to. Cause the instinct is. Yeah. To just remember the video. And then I have to go, no, no, no. That was you.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

That happened to you.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Ariel Elias]

And then go back into, like, how it felt on stage.

[Mike Pesca]

But in terms of someone who's known to persevere occasionally, would you say, what does that mean? To really dwell on something and maybe having negative thoughts? Would you still say. And stand by looking back on that, no notes.

[Ariel Elias]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's so funny, too, because like, three weeks before that, I was doing. I was featuring in St. Louis, and I, like, got too mad too fast at a woman who was being obnoxious. And it was like a real. You know, I took the lesson afterwards of, oh, you. You can't let them see you get mad. Like, you know, that's. That's where. Cause she was being obnoxious. And there were other people in the crowd who were like, hey, thank you for telling her to shut the fuck up.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Ariel Elias]

But also, I, like, I felt bad about it. And so it was. It just so happened that three weeks later, I was like, oh, here's my opportunity to not let them see me be mad.

[Mike Pesca]

Redemption. Yes, Redemption at Uncle Vinny's. The Ariel Elias story.

[Ariel Elias]

The only time that's ever been said.

[Mike Pesca]

Ariel Elias new special is Jewish Star.

[Ariel Elias]

A Jewish star.

[Mike Pesca]

It is also a Jewish star. Two thirds of it is Jewish Star. But the A needs to be said, too. I'll say that again. Ariel Elias's new special, which you could see all over your YouTubes and everywhere else, is a Jewish star. Thank you so much.

[Ariel Elias]

Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, and that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist, Ashley Kahn's our production coordinator, Jeff Craig runs our socials, and Michelle Palmer Peska runs around doing it all. Oomparujeeperu do Peru and thanks for listening.

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