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- [00:00]
Marc Maron
Lock the gate.
- [00:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
All right, let's do this. How are you? What the. What the Buddies? What the Nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Marin. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. How's everybody going? How's everybody going? How's everybody doing? How you going? That's what my Australian manager says. How are you going? I don't know what that is. How are you going? I don't know. I guess I'm going the way most of us go. That's at some point, heart attack, cancer. But I think that's reading into it. Maybe it's just relative to the day. How's your day going? It's okay. Updates? Well, you know, I got back on Sunday. I don't know if I told you, but my cat Charlie has got this condition that apparently is stress induced colitis. So I came home to, yeah, a lot of diarrhea, mystery places, just all over. He did a pretty good job on the whole house. If I asked someone to, hey, could you shit small puddles of diarrhea, like random places, but throughout the house. Like throughout the house to where I'm surprised by it days later. I'd appreciate that. Now, I've talked about this before and I'm going to go ahead and start Charlie on the Prozac for cats. But I did not do it yet. And I talked about before that I have resistance because I project my own sense of self onto the cat. And I think, well, I don't want Charlie to be a lesser version of Charlie. I don't want Charlie to have his edges tapered. I don't want Charlie to not be full throttle Charlie. But now that I'm trying some medication, I think that perhaps together, you know, we can. We can go on this journey together. But I will start that on Monday where I can make sure I get it done every day and. And manage it. As for me and my medication journey that started. What is it? It's been about a week. I'd like to think it's working. I don't know. Do feel a little queasy, maybe a little dizzy. Maybe it's taken the edge off some of my catastrophic thinking and compulsive panic. Don't know. Don't know. I don't know. And then I watched this documentary about Andy Kaufman. I'm thinking, like, dude, just. Just do the tm, Just, you know, Lynn did it. Just do the TM and nail this thing. I went through that today. Like, I'm gonna get off this medicine. This is stupid. Why am I Altering my God. Given, natural, given, evolved, whatever. Genetically given. However you wanna look at it. Why don't I just live with that and learn how to transcend? To TM it. To TM it, damn it. And then I realized, like, yeah, I don't know. Let's just. Let's just see how this goes. Let's just do this. Let's just do this medicine. I hope it doesn't make me queasy the whole time. Hey, look, you guys, look. Today I'm talking to a guy named Modi Rosenfeld. Goes by the name Modi. Now, I've known Modi. I don't know, I feel like maybe 30 years. 30 years I knew him. Like, I known him since he started doing comedy in New York at the Cellar. I believe I did. I did. I did know him then. He was always very intense, a bit loud, a lot of energy. Very Jewish. Israeli Jew. Jewish, but also very American Jew. Jewish, and to be honest with you, according to him, and maybe he's right, we haven't spoken in 20 years, and he was making the rounds and we were asked if we wanted to have him on. I'm like, of course. Of course we'll have Modi on. What's that guy been doing? But it also made me think, this conversation about my own Jewishness. Jewness. Jewishness, yes. That's. That's where I come from. I've tried on a lot of different hats, a lot of yarmulkes, a lot of larger hats. Not really a hat guy, turns out Jew or otherwise. Tomorrow I'm in Skokie, Illinois, at the North Shore center for the Performing Arts. And Saturday, speaking of Jews. Then Saturday I'll be in Joliet, Illinois, at the Rialto Square theater, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm coming to GLC live at 20 Monroe. I'm coming on Friday, April 11th, and then traverse City, Michigan, at the City Opera house on Saturday, April 12. Also, new dates at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles. Monday, April 14, Saturday, April 26, and Tuesday, April 29. Those are all at 7:30pm running the hour. Then I'm coming to Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire and Brooklyn, New York, finally, for my HBO special taping at the BAM Harvey Theater on May 10. I don't. I think there's a few tickets left. I don't. They might be singles. Go check. And also, I mentioned on Monday that the documentary about the illustrator Drew Friedman is screening this Saturday here in Los Angeles. Drew Friedman, Vermeer of the Borscht Belt, will be showing at the Arrow Theater with a panel discussion afterward featuring Dana Gould, Cliff Nesteroff, Leonard Moulton, Meryl Marco, Steven Weber, and screenwriter Scott Alexander. You can get tickets at the Arrow Theater or go to american cinematech.com. so I was at Largo last night trying to get this hour down to size. I'm out there doing an hour 30, hour 40. Now I gotta trim the fat, but none of it's really fat. This is the challenging part about moving towards a special because they want an hour, and I don't really understand that. I guess the idea is that they've decided that human beings in the current culture we live in are incapable of. Of watching anything for more than, you know, an hour at best, which I think is crazy. But maybe. What do I know? I mean, I can watch something for more than an hour, especially if it's compelling, and that's assuming that what I'm doing is funny and compelling. But it all. It all works together for me for an hour and a half. And I know it's a long show, but last night I got on stage. Mulaney came by. Mulaney opened for me. That's always interesting when the. When the guy. The guy who's one of the biggest stars in comedy brings you up. Just me and him. He wanted to run some stuff for tonight during last night's talk shows. Always good to see Mulaney. It was funny. Nice chat. But then I got up there and I made an outline of the stuff I think would comprise the hour out of my hour and a half. And I went at such a breakneck speed. I sweat. I broke a sweat about 40 minutes into this, and I've got a couple of pieces. This opening bit. Well, it's probably the second bit is just a story, and I was going at such a pace. The laughs were great. It was pounding away. And I thought, you know, I had done probably what would have in a theater show been probably about an hour 15, you know, hour 20. And I got it done in under an hour. And because it was so intense, I started to think, well, maybe I should be working at this pace. It probably had something to do with the fact that I just watched Mulaney, and he. He works at a pretty good clip, and he brought me up, and I. I think he left some of his zone up there, and I think I stepped into it and I pounded away and. But it was pretty satisfying. But I don't really want to break a sweat on my special. I do feel like I have my own pace, but I hadn't driven that hard in a long time. And it was pretty good. It felt like I was, you know, I was putting on a rock show and. Well, we'll see. We'll see. I. I don't know. We recorded it. They wanted to have a look at it, so. So we did that. Hey. Hey. Let me ask you something. Do you ever hear about a new show or a movie that's coming out on a streaming service you don't already have and you really want to see it, so you subscribe to that streaming service, but then you completely forget you did? Yes, I do that. I do that. It happens all the time. Yeah, to me, and those forgotten streaming services sure can add up. That's why getting Rocket Money was a game changer. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to Rocket Money.com WTF today? That's RocketMoney.com WTF today, huh? RocketMoney.com WTF? Stop wasting cash. Stop it. Yeah, so I think. I think the hour's in pretty good shape. I'm not second guessing any of the material in terms of, you know, whether it's funny or not. I think when it comes down to me planning these, these hours, there are certain bits where I'm like, is that necessary? Is it necessary? You know, I want all the bits to be my sort of signature bits. I don't really want to talk about too many topics that other people are talking about, but that seems impossible. But there are just some bits that pushed a certain envelope where I'm like, do I have to do that to them? And then I just watched this documentary on Andy Kaufman, and obviously I'm nothing like him, and I would never compare myself to him. But there is a point where that question, if you ask that question of yourself, do I have to do that to them? If you're Andy Kaufman or whatever precedent he set in this world, which was a big one, it's yes, yes, you absolutely have to. There's no question that that has to be done. So I talked to this guy Modi today, and as I said earlier, we do go back. We were never pals or anything, but I've certainly known him a Very long time. And I really haven't seen him in 20 years. And we had a very. It's kind of a unique and great discussion, and it's pretty Jewy. And, you know, he kind of brought me back to something that, you know, we land on similar, not heroes, but in the zone of comedy. That, you know, kind of started him going. Thinking about comedy. You know, I. I was in that zone, you know, I mean, my Jewish identity was. It's. What it is now is me saying I'm Jewish. I mean, I guess that some people know that I'm Jewish, but there was a time when I was a kid, I mean, all of my comedy heroes, most of them from very early on. I mean, I'm talking when I was 10 or 11 years old. Yeah, there was something about the. My grandparents, Grandma Goldie and Grandpa Jack. My Grandpa Jack, New Jersey used to love the Three Stooges. I didn't love the Three Stooges. My grandma likes standups. And I just remember there's this period of time where I couldn't have been more than 10 years old. And I would look forward to Parade magazine, which used to come in the Sunday paper. And the last page of Parade magazine was a thing called My Favorite Jokes. And they'd have a picture of a comic, and then they'd have a bunch of his jokes there written out. And a lot of them at that time, comedy was kind of a Jewish racket for a long time. And a lot of that is gone. It's sad to me, but things change. The tone of comedy changes. The culture we live in changes. But there was a period of time in the 70s, and certainly before that, where comedy, both in standup clubs and in movies, was. Were Jews. The Jews created the rhythm of that. You know, there was a lot of black comedy around as well, but it was kind of Jews and blacks and a couple of. Of ethnic comics that were a bit over the top. But the Jews created the rhythm. And that was a rhythm I was brought up with. You know, like, it was. It just. It's a pattern. It's a structure almost of modern joke writing. And when I was young and watching Buddy Hackett, you know, Don Rickles, I enjoyed Woody Allen's movies. There was Jackie Vernon, who I don't think was a Jew. I liked. I loved watching the old roasts with all the old guys. Jack Benny, Milton Berle, to a certain degree, but. But Buddy Hackett and, you know, and. And Don Rickles when I were a kid. When I was a kid, it doesn't get Much funnier than that Rodney Dangerfield, Jewish guys. And, well, now I think about it, there was quite a few who weren't Jewish. You know, they were Italian, you know, Dean Martin, not a comic. But nonetheless, that generation of comedy performer Richard Lewis was important. But there was, when I was younger, you know, like 13, 14, you know, 15, aside from, you know, smoking cigarettes and wanting to be Keith Richards, there was this thread that kind of ran through me comedically that I think was fundamentally Jewish that I could lock into. I worked at a deli when I was in college, Gordon's Deli, and Pottingham Circle in Boston. And these were Boston Jews. And there was something so familiar about it. Even my grandma Goldie's house, you know, my. My grandpa Jack used to have a poker game once a week. He had Joe Suskin there, yet Gerson Eisenberg, you had Shani Shanholtz, you know, these guys. And it was a thing, it was a type. The sort of middle class American Jewish thing was a thing. And it was encultured into me. And my parents moved to New Mexico and there was some of those, you know, transplants from the East Coast. But a certain amount of that Jewishness kind of got, you know, washed out of me, not out of any desire to pass. It just wasn't culturally where I was living. I mean, we were Jews, we were among Jews, but most of them were not New York Jews. And then I went on a teen tour and that was all New York Jews. It was always. I had cousins who lived in Long island, but that Jewish thing was always there. And when I was in college, I. We did a show, a play. It was Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water. And I played the main guy, I'm forgetting his name now, the old man. And I locked in to this Jewish old man like he had been living in me because it was how I was wired comedically from watching all these old guys that I just became this guy.
- [15:19]
Marc Maron
What?
- [15:19]
Modi Rosenfeld
Are you kidding me? Look at this guy. What? Huh? What? You know, so easy deli talk, you know, post synagogue talk, poker table talk, sales talk. Here he is. You know, whatever it was in me, I can't quite explain it because I didn't really grow up with it, but I grew up admiring it and wanting to be it. I wanted to be an old Jewish. Like, if my parents didn't move to New Mexico and, you know, have whatever that half cowboy experience was growing up and going to high school there, if they would have stayed in New Jersey, I would have been Jeff Ross. Well, that. I doubt it, but. But I would have been in culture differently, being surrounded by Jews my whole life. I would have, you know, certainly been locked into it in a different way, in a sort of unavoidable way, an unerasable way. But when I went to college, you know, I got more into art and more into poetry and more into beatniks and, you know, and Allen Ginsberg, turns out, was my least favorite beatnik, but, you know, he was the Jew. But nonetheless, something else started to happen. I no longer aspired to be, like, what are you? So it kind of shifted, but there was no attempt to not do it. It just wasn't really who I was. It was just sort of a personality I was trying on. But I remember when I started comedy, I was very aware of, of the comics that I idolized and the comics that, that made me laugh and, and the Jewishness of it. I think when I did some sort of variety night in college, I might have tried. I might have done a Woody Allen joke from a standup routine. I mean, I wasn't a professional. I didn't see it as stealing. It was me trying to see if I could get a laugh. But. But when I started doing comedy professionally or starting out in Los Angeles, out here at the Comedy Store, I did not. I knew that it was an option to culturally identify, character wise, as Jewish. Like, I had it in me. I'd done it in a play in college. It was part of me. It might have even been part of my Ashkenazi genetic makeup. But I made a conscious choice to not do it because I didn't want to speak that language. I didn't want to do this stereotype. I didn't want to lean on stereotypes about Jews. I didn't want to characterize myself like that. Even when I talk about it now, maybe not to Jewish people, but to some people, it's probably a surprise that I'm Jewish. If I say I'm a Jewish, sometimes I'll say, like, well, I'm a Jew, you know, but. But nonetheless, it was not part of the stereotype because I talked to Modi a bit about Jackie Mason, who I didn't. I didn't like him as a person. I met him once. He was nasty to me. I didn't really love his comedy. It was not my thing because I thought he was doing a stereotype and I didn't want to stereotype Jews and I didn't want to play that stereotype. So there was sort of a conscious decision. My part, when I Started doing comedy to not lean into the Jewish thing just because I thought it would box me in. And I still don't. I talk about being Jewish, but I don't do the Jewish thing, though I love it and though I could. And sometimes there are moments where it happens and I'm happy it comes out, but it was not. It was not. It was a conscious choice. I mean, I had the option. I have the birthright to it, but I did not take it. And I didn't grow up in New Jersey or New York, so it wouldn't have been honest. So Modi is very interesting because he's Israeli born and he grew up in Long island. So he has kind of these. This kind of dual dynamic of Israeli and American Jewishness. And this was kind of a great conversation. You can go to Modilive.com to find out where he'll be. Plus you can check out his podcast. Here's Modi as well as watch his YouTube special, Know youw Audience. He became very big during COVID and it's an interesting story. And this is me talking to Modi. Let me take a minute to tell you about two great new additions to my life. The carom and the heart. Those are the two rugs I just got from Revival Rugs, and they're perfect folks. I'm a rug freak, and it's not usually an easy decision. Rugs can be way overpriced and low quality. Revival's founders don't want you spending thousands on a rug, but they don't want you settling for less either. Their most popular line is Revival's Genuine Washable Rugs, which are truly 100% washable, but have the look and feel of a real rug, so you don't have to sacrifice style for convenience. I picked out my rugs from the Revival site and it was totally easy to find exactly the right rugs for my space. Visit RevivalRugs.com WTF and use code WTF20 for 20% off your first order. Once again, that's RevivalRugs.com WTFand use code WTF20. Nothing beats that feeling of instantly transforming a room with a new rug. I just had that feeling twice and now it's your turn one more time. Revivalrugs.com WTF with code WTF20 to save 20%. Are you surprised by the whole operation?
- [21:12]
Marc Maron
I always in my mind, even I thought I heard you referencing people like.
- [21:17]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh yeah, there's nobody here, nobody here.
- [21:19]
Marc Maron
It's amazing.
- [21:20]
Modi Rosenfeld
I know it just sit me. So now I see the Levels. And I figured it out. I got a new mixer here. I just got. And I like. I don't know much about how to record much anything else, but I can do this.
- [21:32]
Marc Maron
It's pretty good. We're trying to figure out how to do it when we're on the road. Who. I have a podcast as well.
- [21:38]
Modi Rosenfeld
Audio.
- [21:39]
Marc Maron
Audio and video and YouTube, and it's everywhere. But when we travel, it's so hard to do it. So we're trying to. We bought all the equipment and trying to figure. Fuck. It's so much.
- [21:53]
Modi Rosenfeld
So you gotta make a studio in a hotel room.
- [21:55]
Marc Maron
Yeah. But we, you know, we do it. Funny enough, we do it at a place called what the fuck Studios.
- [22:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [22:02]
Marc Maron
WTF Studios? Where?
- [22:03]
Modi Rosenfeld
In New York.
- [22:04]
Marc Maron
In New York. We just plop.
- [22:06]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [22:06]
Marc Maron
With a guest or without. Do our thing. Who? Me? My husband.
- [22:12]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [22:12]
Marc Maron
And Periel Aschenbrand. She's. She's unknown from. She's on the. The Comedy Sellers podcast.
- [22:19]
Periel Aschenbrand
So she.
- [22:20]
Marc Maron
She's our producer.
- [22:21]
Modi Rosenfeld
Okay.
- [22:21]
Marc Maron
So we put. She ended up. Everybody ended up being together on the podcast with the guest and we. And we. 100.
- [22:28]
Modi Rosenfeld
Is it called. What's it called? Jew Talk.
- [22:31]
Marc Maron
And here's Modi.
- [22:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
So Jew Talk.
- [22:34]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [22:34]
Marc Maron
Are we recording? Yeah, we're already talking.
- [22:36]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [22:37]
Marc Maron
Podcast is called. And here's Modi. Because of. Because, yeah. You know, I did so many private Jewish events.
- [22:47]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah.
- [22:48]
Marc Maron
And there's always raising money for something. And there's always showing a movie of some kid missing an earlobe or some, God forbid, cancer that hit God. What part of the body. And then, like, literally they go. And here's Modi.
- [23:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
After the film.
- [23:02]
Marc Maron
After the film. Like, right after the film. And here's Modi.
- [23:04]
Modi Rosenfeld
I've been in that situation.
- [23:06]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [23:06]
Marc Maron
But I was in there for 20 years. So, you know, you guys popped in and out of those situations. I was in those situations.
- [23:13]
Modi Rosenfeld
You chose your life.
- [23:15]
Marc Maron
Correct. And I'm very happy about it.
- [23:17]
Modi Rosenfeld
So tell me about the prayer you said when he came.
- [23:20]
Marc Maron
I haven't seen you in 20 years.
- [23:22]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [23:22]
Marc Maron
So when you see somebody that you haven't seen in 20 years, there's a prayer you say, bless God who brings back the dead, even though you weren't dead, but I haven't seen you in so long, it's like you were dead. It's.
- [23:36]
Modi Rosenfeld
But that's sort of a profound idea because you don't know. You know, you would have heard if I was dead. But in terms of the.
- [23:45]
Marc Maron
In your life, physically, I haven't seen you.
- [23:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
No, I get it.
- [23:49]
Marc Maron
I Recently saw someone unchambering an entire machine gun into your body.
- [23:53]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [23:54]
Marc Maron
In a movie.
- [23:55]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [23:55]
Marc Maron
Yes. I just saw you being killed in a movie recently, so even more. But. And I obviously have seen all your stuff specials in here and there, but I haven't physically seen you. I haven't run into you at the comedy seller.
- [24:06]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, I don't go in there anymore. Really.
- [24:08]
Marc Maron
Yeah, but. But I do. But. But like, so that's like judging it, right? I'm just like. So. So I haven't seen you at. In Montreal comedy festivals or anything like that. So we just have not run into each other.
- [24:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's so crazy because I. I feel like I must have, you know, I must have seen you. I was there when you started. I must have been there when you started. Yeah, because I. I do remember, like, all of a sudden there was this frenetic, loud Jewish guy jumping around everywhere and just like getting on stage and like, you know, just. Just going at it. I didn't know what. I didn't know what to make of you.
- [24:43]
Marc Maron
I was. Yeah.
- [24:44]
Modi Rosenfeld
I didn't know if you were gay or straight or if you were, you know, where you came from, where you landed, if I didn't know anything. But you were a force, right?
- [24:54]
Marc Maron
Yes. I began.
- [24:56]
Modi Rosenfeld
And you look good.
- [24:57]
Marc Maron
Thank you. Thank you. I began doing comedy in 1993. I was passed at the Comedy Cellar in 94. So think of where you were you were doing at the time. You were like, oh, my God, Marc Maron stopping in. So you were at the comic strip 95.
- [25:15]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, it's weird. Maybe the Comic Strip a bit. Right?
- [25:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [25:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
But like, I don't think she let me work at the Cellar until after I did that HBO half hour in 95. I wasn't. I was around. I was certainly in New York and doing alternative and I had a presence there. But yeah, I wasn't a big shot, that's for sure. But yeah, maybe at the Comic Strip first. Anyone could get in the Comic Strip.
- [25:38]
Marc Maron
Well, I was in investment banking. I was in investment banking.
- [25:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
But wait, wait, but you were born where?
- [25:43]
Marc Maron
I was born in Israel.
- [25:44]
Modi Rosenfeld
In Israel, yeah.
- [25:45]
Marc Maron
We came to America when I was 7.
- [25:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
And so your parents are Israeli.
- [25:48]
Marc Maron
So am I. I was born in Israel.
- [25:50]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right. Yeah, but you were seven when you got here. But your parents left Israel. That's. That. That seems like the wrong direction generally.
- [25:57]
Marc Maron
No, for Jews. Many Jews left Israel and came to America. Israelis did that.
- [26:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [26:02]
Marc Maron
And the ones that did well stayed. The ones that didn't said, how can you live In America and went back. My father did well, so we stayed.
- [26:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
What did he do?
- [26:10]
Marc Maron
He was in gas stations and, you know, that kind of stuff.
- [26:13]
Modi Rosenfeld
And where did you grow up?
- [26:15]
Marc Maron
The five towns in Long Island.
- [26:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
So. Well, one of the. I guess. What, which one? Grade Neck became full, like, Persian Jews, right?
- [26:24]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's a whole world I don't know anything about. But they're the new Japs.
- [26:27]
Marc Maron
They're the new Japs. Yeah.
- [26:29]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [26:29]
Marc Maron
Yeah. I was just at a big event for them. I just did a huge event for them.
- [26:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
Like when I was growing up, you know, my mother's cousins, you know the Hewlett, and you know, the, you know, they were the Japs. But now, like, you know, they're all old and it's not even. But Persian Jews seem to be the reinvention of the Jewish American prince and princess.
- [26:45]
Marc Maron
They really are here and in Great Neck. Yes, they are.
- [26:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
And were they always a presence? Because I don't remember Persian Jews when I was growing up.
- [26:52]
Marc Maron
I didn't until my best friend married one, and then I was fully in their world.
- [26:57]
Modi Rosenfeld
How different is it? Is it more like very insular?
- [27:00]
Marc Maron
They're very close knit. There are lots of cousins, lots of engagement parties, lots of. And they're all in real estate on top of whatever they do. So it's.
- [27:13]
Modi Rosenfeld
So it's not like. Did you grow up Orthodox?
- [27:16]
Marc Maron
No, we grew up. We grew up. We grew up traditional. Yeah. I was more religious than anybody in the family. I used to go to synagogue every Saturday. Yeah. And then I went to yeshiva on my own.
- [27:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
Really? Were they like, what's wrong with this kid?
- [27:28]
Marc Maron
No, they loved it. I used to love the cantorial singing, so I used to go to synagogue to listen to the cantor. So, yeah, if you think about it's drag, he's in the grove and the whole thing. It's wonderful.
- [27:38]
Modi Rosenfeld
Were you going to Orthodox temples?
- [27:39]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Orthodox. And there was a Conservative synagogue, too.
- [27:42]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:42]
Marc Maron
Great Canto.
- [27:43]
Modi Rosenfeld
You were like 11.
- [27:45]
Marc Maron
I was, yeah. Before my bar mitzvah and after. Yeah. I loved.
- [27:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
Obsessed. You were obsessed.
- [27:49]
Marc Maron
Obsessed with cantorial singing.
- [27:51]
Modi Rosenfeld
So you went to yeshiva.
- [27:52]
Marc Maron
I went to yeshiva. When we first got here, my parents put me in yeshiva. Then I realized, like, the community that we live in is 99% Jewish.
- [28:00]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yes.
- [28:00]
Marc Maron
The entire. So they put me in Hewlett High School and they're like, well, I'm not spending all that money on Jesus with.
- [28:05]
Modi Rosenfeld
All the Jews surrounded by Jews.
- [28:06]
Periel Aschenbrand
Anyway.
- [28:07]
Chris Fleming
Yeah.
- [28:07]
Marc Maron
And then we went to the, you know, day school. But then after college, during College. I went to bu, too. Yeah, I know.
- [28:14]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [28:15]
Marc Maron
And liberal arts. Liberal arts cla. And then. And then there was a yeshiva on campus.
- [28:22]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [28:22]
Marc Maron
That you don't. I don't think you know about it. Lubavitch Yeshiva. And I used to go and study there a lot.
- [28:27]
Modi Rosenfeld
Let me ask you something about this.
- [28:29]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [28:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, because, like, I do a bit, you know, sometimes about. About being Jewish, about being culturally Jewish, you know, I'm a Jew. And people ask, oh, are you religious? I'm like, no, I'm a Jew.
- [28:45]
Marc Maron
There's 15 million Jews in the world, and there's 15 million ways to be Jewish.
- [28:49]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right. And then they go, do you believe in God? And I'm like, well, we don't really have to. We were chosen by God. So I don't have to. You know, I don't think that. Are you religious? No, but I can't remember the tag. But it's that, you know, we were chosen by God, we don't have to be religious. And I think that's really what upsets you people, is that we were chosen.
- [29:10]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [29:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
But. But I think about it about. About the Jews relationship with God and what that means and the complexities of that. Because when you brought up Jewish, Conservative, American, Jew, no ability to really translate or read Hebrew. Hebrew.
- [29:27]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [29:28]
Modi Rosenfeld
Or to understand it as it's being spoken.
- [29:30]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [29:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
And I don't really remembering, like, I always think, like, you know, you have to be taught how to use God.
- [29:35]
Marc Maron
Yes.
- [29:35]
Modi Rosenfeld
And I don't remember that ever happening. You know, it was, you know, there's a lot of talk about God, but, like, how have God in your life?
- [29:44]
Marc Maron
Well, if my. You know, I believe, first of all, let's go back. You said the chosen people.
- [29:51]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [29:52]
Marc Maron
So we were chosen.
- [29:54]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [29:54]
Marc Maron
You know, but we weren't chosen to be the strongest nation in the world and the most ruling nation and the most powerful nation. We were chosen to be the nation that disseminates comedy. Literally, in the Torah, it doesn't say. When you see hospitals and universities and schools and Jewish names all over that that's what we were chosen to do. To relieve pressure, to relieve. To bring healing and that kind of energy, which is where comedy is. Okay. It really relieves sadness. Sure, yeah. That's what it says in the Talmud. And then, so then going back to God, to make it simple for me, I'll tell you, for me, the biggest line in the Torah is, hero, Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. Right. So it says, the Lord is one. Not that there Is one God up above judging everybody. It's its oneness. Me, you sitting here, the microphone working. That's God. God is right here. Yeah, this is God. Right. So if you connect to it, bam, you got it.
- [31:00]
Modi Rosenfeld
You're in it.
- [31:00]
Marc Maron
You're in it.
- [31:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right?
- [31:01]
Marc Maron
You got it.
- [31:02]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right. So it's a given.
- [31:04]
Marc Maron
It's a given that it's oneness.
- [31:05]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yes.
- [31:05]
Marc Maron
But it's gotta be with everybody.
- [31:07]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [31:07]
Marc Maron
So the neighbor you hate, that's also God. You gotta figure that out.
- [31:11]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [31:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
And also, like, it just seems like, you know, from what I gleaned over time, that the engagement with Jews, you know, biblically, in the Talmud and everything else is an active relationship. There's, in terms of God and interpreting God, that there's a conversation that goes on and on and on, of course, every day.
- [31:29]
Marc Maron
Again, what is oneness? What's happening in Israel? What's happening it. What's happening in your neighborhood? What's happening in protests and all of that? It's a constant struggle to connect to that oneness.
- [31:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
Do you think that's what the struggle is?
- [31:43]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [31:43]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's how you see it. But do you think that's how it's seen by others?
- [31:47]
Marc Maron
No. Which is the problem. Which is the problem.
- [31:50]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [31:51]
Modi Rosenfeld
So when you're growing up, like, you know, you felt that. When did that oneness part hit you?
- [31:57]
Marc Maron
The oneness, that lesson of seeing it together. A lot of. I always. I don't know, I never really understood. Understood everything kind of COVID Kind of brought it all together.
- [32:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, really?
- [32:10]
Marc Maron
So recent Covid kind of really put it all together.
- [32:13]
Modi Rosenfeld
So when you go into yeshiva, you just like the songs, you like the music, you like that. Everybody's in the room, they're singing, and they're all men. The old guy, women are upstairs.
- [32:24]
Marc Maron
Makes it easy.
- [32:27]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, when you realize you were gay, I mean, was that something that was explored when you were young? In yeshiva, do you find other men, other boys?
- [32:36]
Marc Maron
No, I didn't. Like, I was. I'm really bi.
- [32:40]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [32:40]
Marc Maron
So I'm really, you know, and. But I. I focused more so in yeshiva. I was like, I'm just being in yeshiva, I'm not straight or gay. I was literally just like, I'm into the studying. I want to learn. I want to. I'm a Jew.
- [32:52]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [32:53]
Marc Maron
I identified as a Jew.
- [32:54]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [32:55]
Marc Maron
I learned as much as I could.
- [32:56]
Modi Rosenfeld
But not. Not ultra Orthodox. Just orthodox.
- [32:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [32:59]
Modi Rosenfeld
Just like, no pais and no.
- [33:02]
Marc Maron
But then I went to a very Hasidic yeshiva that I loved. I love. I tell You. Why? What I really love it was the singing and the Yiddish.
- [33:09]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [33:09]
Marc Maron
So we learned the. That we learned a lot of the text in Yiddish, which I was just obsessed with.
- [33:15]
Modi Rosenfeld
You still speak?
- [33:16]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love. It's the, it's the. It's a. In comedy.
- [33:20]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [33:21]
Marc Maron
It's on another level.
- [33:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, it's interesting because when I grew up, you know, like, my, my grandparents were not. They spoke Yiddish when they didn't want us to know what they were saying.
- [33:30]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [33:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
It was in them, but it wasn't the language of the house or anything. But I think that for. For most of my childhood, the, the comics that I looked up with, I really think the drive shaft of comedy was a Yiddish rhythm. Yep. And it doesn't exist much anymore.
- [33:47]
Marc Maron
Well, you haven't seen my act.
- [33:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
No. Well, I know you're there, but it was interesting. Cause like, Kathy Ladman reached out to me and, you know, she's, you know, my age, in her 60s, and, you know, she's doing comedy still, and I watch her stuff again and it's that rhythm. It's that New York Jewish rhythm with good jokes.
- [34:05]
Marc Maron
Yes.
- [34:05]
Modi Rosenfeld
And I'm like, I don't hear it anymore. Like, there are guys that, you know, that undeniably, you know, like Rickles Dangerfield, Mason.
- [34:16]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [34:16]
Modi Rosenfeld
Who I never liked.
- [34:18]
Marc Maron
Too Jewish. Too Jewish. It was too Jewish. It's funny. It's just part of his act.
- [34:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
But he annoyed me because, like, when I started doing comedy, it wasn't that I didn't want to be Jewish, but I didn't want to talk about it in a way that was stereotypical. Like, you know, with Jackie Mason, everything's like, you know, Jews just want to sit down, they want to do this, we want to eat something. You know, everything is with. The Jew does this, the Jew does that.
- [34:39]
Marc Maron
The Jew.
- [34:40]
Modi Rosenfeld
I'm like, we can't all be that. You know, that's been done and it doesn't apply to me. So I can't talk about it until I know how to talk about it, you know, for myself. And I figured out a way, but it wasn't through a Jewish identity. It was through, you know, being Jewish. Like, I'm Jewish and this is how I see it. Not like, we all Jews do this. All Jews do. That bothered me.
- [35:02]
Marc Maron
Right. Listen, Jackie Mason was the voice of Jews when he had that show on Broadway.
- [35:07]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yes.
- [35:08]
Marc Maron
So he was three years a sold out show on Broadway, which is. Wow.
- [35:12]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [35:12]
Marc Maron
Because there was no. There's no Facebook and no Instagram. We used to go see him once a month.
- [35:19]
Modi Rosenfeld
You did.
- [35:20]
Marc Maron
And back then. Yeah. And when we didn't see him, we had him on tape in the car.
- [35:24]
Modi Rosenfeld
The whole family, the whole family.
- [35:25]
Marc Maron
We knew that I could do his entire Broadway show. The show. We just. It was such an amazing. Just to see it and just. And now, you know, the New York Times wrote that I'm the new Jackie Mason, which I'm Modi. I'm not Jackie Mason.
- [35:42]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [35:42]
Marc Maron
But it's a voice now where I'm on stage and no longer is the voice of Jews. Like, hello, I'm trying to get a deal, I'm trying to get a duh. It's now it's proud, good looking guy, he's married to a man who's not Jewish, he's Israeli, he knows his Torah, he knows his this, he knows his that. And he's. And that's the new voice of Jews. And you know, I'm performing in all over Europe. I'm performing in Berlin, Munich.
- [36:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
Do you ever perform in Hebrew?
- [36:13]
Marc Maron
No, I do very well in Israel. I did. I just did the Broffen Center, 3,000 seats. But in Europe, they come out to see me and you know, when you meet the fans off, away from the show, like when they come up to me, they say it's a for us in Berlin to see somebody standing on stage screaming that they're Jewish.
- [36:33]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [36:34]
Marc Maron
And they're proud.
- [36:35]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [36:35]
Marc Maron
And they're laughing and how great we're doing and all that. You just don't see that.
- [36:39]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [36:40]
Marc Maron
He says that, you know, I met this kid on the street. He was blond, beautiful boy. And his girlfriend was this beautiful Ethiopian Jew that he met in Israel. And they're a couple, but the Jews are still quiet. They don't put Moses up. They don't. They keep it very low key. And to all of a sudden see somebody on stage screaming that they're Jewish and proud of it and all that.
- [37:02]
Modi Rosenfeld
I'm finding that with just liberals now in my audience now. But what about in the sense of, I mean, you know, we don't need to go into this too much because it doesn't need to. You know, I had a discussion with Mo Amer, you know, recently.
- [37:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [37:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, in his experience in America, but also as a familial experience, you know, having family in Palestine now. What the Jewish identity currently now, how is it, how do you handle. I mean, it's not your responsibility. But there is, there is two ways of thinking about Israel as Jews.
- [37:39]
Marc Maron
Yes.
- [37:40]
Modi Rosenfeld
And. And I imagine as Israelis too.
- [37:42]
Marc Maron
Okay.
- [37:43]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [37:46]
Marc Maron
Yes.
- [37:47]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yes.
- [37:48]
Marc Maron
You being Jewish and being Israeli, and then just because you're Jewish, everybody thinks you're representing Israel. Like when they're yelling at the kids on the college campus, free Palestine. This kid's a college. He has nothing to do with freeing Palestine.
- [38:01]
Periel Aschenbrand
Right.
- [38:01]
Marc Maron
When people write, you know, on comments, they write free pa. Like, it's not an app that I can just go and free Palestine. What do you want? We were in Israel. I had a tour in Israel right before October 7th, and we were in Israel when it happened. So. And then we had that day a flight to Paris to do four shows in Paris starting the month. So the war began on Saturday.
- [38:28]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [38:28]
Marc Maron
And on Monday I had a show in Paris.
- [38:31]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [38:31]
Marc Maron
Four sold out shows. And like, what are we gonna do? Do we cancel? We didn't cancel.
- [38:36]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [38:36]
Marc Maron
And I started to sing at the end of the show, Hatikvah, we sing the Israeli national anthem. Because I just do a full hour, 10, 15 minutes of comedy and you gotta, like, just remember where our hearts, our souls, our thoughts are, you know, with all of Israel, everybody there, you know, and it's just, that's devastating.
- [38:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
But as somebody, like, I was trying to do bits about it, right. You know, and I waited a long time, you know, because, you know, when you're a Jew of any kind and we talked about the spectrum of Jewishness that you're expected to have comment, you know, where do you stand? And there's no gray area, you know, for most, you know, for most Jews, you know, either you, you, you know, you, you, you make a position that you think what is going on there is wrong, but you understand the state of Israel or you, you take a position that doesn't matter what the state of Israel does and it has to survive, Right? So those are your options, you know, and it took me a long time to figure out an angle that was resonant, you know, because I think that as middle class Jews, me having the discussion we had about God is like, I don't remember being taught about God in a specific way that would make me understand God. But you were certainly taught that Israel was more important than anything.
- [39:54]
Marc Maron
That's right.
- [39:55]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know what I mean? That there has to be this place.
- [39:58]
Marc Maron
Right. And we had the little boxes to make the donations for J and L. Sure.
- [40:03]
Modi Rosenfeld
Trees, you're buying trees. But it is a complicated issue just, you know, to, to, you know, either, you know, have your thoughts about what's going on to you, to yourself, Right. But if you're a public person and you speak, then you're going to be used by either side, you know, one way or the other.
- [40:25]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [40:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
And it's tricky.
- [40:27]
Marc Maron
So in my. In my. So I. I put a lot of.
- [40:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
Intention and I'm avoiding it right now. I'm avoiding it.
- [40:32]
Marc Maron
So I. So in the first. In the first few months, I avoided. I just did my act as if that was the act. Then I dropped that special Know youw Audience. And then I began to slowly talk about the war and then just talking about how the whole world's really looking for a messianic energy, and that's what the goal is. And. And I talk about Muslim men, because two Muslim men saved my father's life at NYU Hospital. Two doctors, both of them Syrian Muslim men, saved his life straight up.
- [41:13]
Modi Rosenfeld
What happened to him?
- [41:15]
Marc Maron
He had clots in his heart, and he put stents and balloons and all that stuff. And they were both. And you know, that's like the goal of life. Just what happened there. That messianic energy. That literally. That's Mashiach energy.
- [41:27]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [41:27]
Marc Maron
The two Arab men saved my father's life, you know, and it's just so. It was so amazing to just when that happened and especially. Cause I never really spent time with my father and we never really talked. Talked until he got sick. We got him to the hospital.
- [41:45]
Modi Rosenfeld
Why didn't you talk? Was he busy?
- [41:47]
Marc Maron
It wasn't that we love each other. We just never spent time speaking.
- [41:51]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [41:52]
Marc Maron
And like, you know, it was just. We wasn't like.
- [41:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
You got a lot of siblings?
- [41:55]
Marc Maron
I had two older sisters.
- [41:56]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [41:57]
Marc Maron
They're always questioning why they never. I go, he was busy.
- [42:00]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [42:00]
Marc Maron
He was working. He was a wife, three kids, mortgage boy, you know, sent us to school. You know, he wasn't a conversationalist, you know, but here we were hours and hours together in the hospital. He told me this amazing story because he never told me about, like him. Because he was in three wars in Israel.
- [42:19]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [42:19]
Marc Maron
Kippur War, the Sinai War, the 67. And he was telling me the story that they. He was in charge. He wasn't in charge. He was a sergeant in front, in the. In this brigade that had three or four trucks that were. Half trucks, half tanks.
- [42:37]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [42:37]
Marc Maron
And they were rolling trucks. Yeah. So there was news, a new thing. He was the driver. He was driving the front one, and the. The captain was next to him. And they got to the. In the middle of the Six Day War, and they get on the desert and they faced the enemy. And they also had like four cars of whatever they had. And then my father so I go, so what did you do? He goes, I took the wheel and I went left. And before the captain had the chance to call the move. Yeah, like, do we start firing now?
- [43:07]
Periel Aschenbrand
Right.
- [43:08]
Marc Maron
And then. And the people that were opposite them, the enemy, they did the same thing. They went and they just. They both left each other. That one moment, that one move of him moving the steering wheel and just going the other way. He. He said, I saw them. They were also reservists.
- [43:24]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [43:24]
Marc Maron
67. 67 war. He had my two sisters. I wasn't born yet. But he just bought a business. He bought a house. He bought. You know, he needs to start firing at them and them firing at him. Yeah, he needs to get out of this. So he made and I don't know of some kind of energy, maybe that. And that moment, all those lives were saved at that moment. You know, maybe that's. And then now two Syrian men saved his life.
- [43:50]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [43:50]
Marc Maron
Mashiach energy.
- [43:51]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [43:52]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah. Because, like, it becomes impossible, you know, even from the beginning, you know, and I tried to explore this on stage and even for myself, you know, I think the fear of even, you know, middle class American Jews to speak out, you know, in. In the name of saving lives, you know, Palestinian lives against genocide, I think their deeper fear, you know, that morally is that like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, you know, I want to make sure I get in.
- [44:19]
Marc Maron
If I have to go to Ghada.
- [44:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
No, to Israel.
- [44:23]
Marc Maron
To Israel.
- [44:24]
Modi Rosenfeld
I don't want to be on the list of shitty Jews.
- [44:28]
Marc Maron
List of shitty Jews.
- [44:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, I don't want to get there. And they're like, well, you made some public statements. So, you know, and I think that the fear of having a public discourse as a Jew knowing that what's going on there is heinous. Is tricky. And I don't think people understand that. It's not tricky for Zionists.
- [44:47]
Marc Maron
Well, whoa, whoa, whoa. So this, bro, wait a minute. So what is these words Zionist and anti Semitist and all. It's so crazy, but it's. In broad strokes. It's. Everything's horrible. These are, these are brothers. We're both. We're all the children of Abraham. We're like the sons of Abraham. We're not cousins, we're brothers. And you just, you just put that into your head and work it. And they're so. We're so similar.
- [45:14]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [45:15]
Marc Maron
The prayers, the way they pray. If you ever hear Sephardic Jews pray and you hear Arabs pray, you can't tell the difference, the customs, the five times a day, they do. But we came from the five times during Yom Kippur. There's a whole thing that we're so similar and to just. Instead of clicking on that, it clicks on everything else that's wrong. And then the politics can follow up and no one's good and no one's good. And the real problem is, this is a crazy thing, and you're going to be in shock that I'm saying if the Knesset, if Israel began to unite, if the Israelis began to unite, they would all go away. If the Jews got along with each other, all the problems in the world would go away. Those of you, there's no visual here, but if you could see Mark's face right now. If you could see Mark's face.
- [46:03]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, it's hard for me to talk about because, you know, you grew up there. This thing's been going on one way or the other for, like, hundreds of years, you know, over this piece of property.
- [46:12]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [46:12]
Modi Rosenfeld
I mean, I used to sit at that table in the back, you know, in the cellar with Manny.
- [46:17]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God. Yeah.
- [46:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, and you know who. You know, you can figure out where he would be. But for you, you know, in America now, was there a point where you thought maybe you'd be a rabbi?
- [46:29]
Marc Maron
No, I would have been a Cancer, but I got. God told me I'm a comedian very early, like, in my career.
- [46:36]
Modi Rosenfeld
God did.
- [46:37]
Marc Maron
God did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then later on, I could really clicked in.
- [46:43]
Modi Rosenfeld
But you didn't. You didn't go.
- [46:44]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [46:44]
Modi Rosenfeld
You went to college. You learned finance.
- [46:46]
Marc Maron
College. I went to colleges. I learned psychology.
- [46:50]
Modi Rosenfeld
Okay.
- [46:50]
Marc Maron
And then. But in college, it was also at the yeshiva.
- [46:53]
Periel Aschenbrand
Right.
- [46:53]
Marc Maron
I don't know if you remember Boswell Street.
- [46:55]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [46:56]
Marc Maron
The South Campus.
- [46:57]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah. I lived on Park Drive. I lived at Park Drive in Buzzwell.
- [46:59]
Marc Maron
So there was a big yeshiva behind there. I used to go there. I was there more than I was in my classes.
- [47:04]
Modi Rosenfeld
Huh.
- [47:04]
Marc Maron
I loved it. And. But I was a part of the school. No, it wasn't a part of bu. It was its own yeshiva.
- [47:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
Okay.
- [47:11]
Marc Maron
It's like this big mansion that they turned into a yeshiva. And it was.
- [47:15]
Modi Rosenfeld
I wonder why I don't remember it.
- [47:17]
Marc Maron
You would have no idea it was there. Unless it was like, you probably went to Tehila or the Chabad House.
- [47:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
Not really, but whatever. I know that is.
- [47:25]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah. But I love that. Like, I really studied there and then studied Torah. Yeah, Torah. And again, a lot of the Rebbe, it was a Lubavitch Yeshiva.
- [47:34]
Modi Rosenfeld
So messianic.
- [47:37]
Marc Maron
I like that. That's where your head goes when you hear the word Lubavitch.
- [47:39]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [47:40]
Marc Maron
But it was like the teaching of the rebbe. Yeah, the labavache rebbe. So I would. Would learn his discourses in Yiddish. And that just brought me in. I was just picking up Yiddish words, and it was so great. And then, like, I didn't realize how much I grasped of Yiddish until I be. Someone gave me this link to these old Jewish comedians like Myron Cohen. That was in English. I'm talking about Jigger and Schumacher. These are two Yiddish comedians. I listened to them. I'm like, oh, my God. The timing, the. The cadence, the words, Mark.
- [48:17]
Periel Aschenbrand
It's.
- [48:17]
Marc Maron
It's in another level of comedy.
- [48:20]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [48:21]
Marc Maron
It's like the next. It's like a movie where it's like. It's another zone of.
- [48:25]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:26]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God.
- [48:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
It's like the. It's like the origin story.
- [48:28]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Like. Like that.
- [48:30]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:31]
Marc Maron
And they worked off of each other, and it was brilliant. What was one of the. They had a joke about a guy driving this menshfurt and foot. And foot and medabke kakin. He has to go to the bathroom. He's got to take a dump. He looks and there's no sign here. There's no sign, and there's no gas station. There's no diner. All of a sudden, he sees Vaschsemir, a washroom. He pulls in, runs inside. He does what he. He does what he has to do. And then he needs toilet paper. There's no toilet paper. So he does as a sign to shri for toilet paper, yell for toilet paper. So shoah toilet paper. And the owner comes in and says, Svan, six dollar for toilet paper. $20 for a piece of turkey. And he begins to go. He's got no brera hotenschken. Brera. See? He has to take it. And then afterwards, he goes outside, he sees the owner taking the $20 and putting it to his pocket and goes, this whole business is yours. Yeah. And you get svanzig dol. You get $20 for a piece of toilet paper. He goes, yeah, yeah. He goes, are you looking for a partner? Then he goes, the owner says, a ganz tog a whole day. Icha pishos mittimal kim to kaka. All day long, people come to pish. One guy comes to take a dump. He wants to be a partner. But the way they tell it is it's the most. You die. You can't catch your breath. It's so good.
- [49:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
But it's funny because of the Israeli accent, the adjustment to Yiddish, which is informed by the Israeli accent in a way. Right, right in the Hebrew. Like, you know, it's a. That's the organic basis of that rhythm. You know, you take right to it. You're not. You don't have to manufacture it.
- [50:14]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [50:14]
Modi Rosenfeld
Like for someone like me, if I'm like, I am, you know, like, you know, I know it, but it doesn't live in me. But I think because the Israeli. It lives in you.
- [50:23]
Marc Maron
That too. But you know, also, I want to tell you something. I've been leaning into it and it's in my, my new show now. I'm on tour now doing Pause for Laughter.
- [50:32]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [50:32]
Marc Maron
Cuz it's literally like. And it's been so good, I leaned into the fact that I am the last Catskill comedian. You, you, you. You're literally with the last Catskill comedian.
- [50:45]
Modi Rosenfeld
How so?
- [50:45]
Marc Maron
How so?
- [50:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, because you were performing for the Jews up there. For the Orthodox.
- [50:49]
Marc Maron
No, no, no. In 1995 or 6, whatever, it was the guy that book the Catskill there was the, the Catskill Mountains. For your listeners who don't know what I'm talking about, it's a little bit north of New York.
- [51:02]
Modi Rosenfeld
What hotel?
- [51:03]
Marc Maron
There were like five left. It was Kutchers, Concord, the Raleigh.
- [51:08]
Modi Rosenfeld
Most of them are gone. Kutcher's, Concord.
- [51:09]
Marc Maron
All of them were gone. All of them are gone now.
- [51:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, they are.
- [51:11]
Marc Maron
But I caught the last. The tail end of those years.
- [51:15]
Modi Rosenfeld
But that was when it was. It was primarily wasn't middle class Jews. It was the Orthodox Jews.
- [51:21]
Marc Maron
No, it was still the middle class Jews that like did well. But their parents still liked going up there.
- [51:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
Okay.
- [51:27]
Marc Maron
They went with their par. It wasn't orthodox. I was kosher, but it wasn't Orthodox. But I was picking up gigs there all the time to the point where I bought an apartment off the money I made in the Catskill Mountains. I worked up there with some of the best comedians in the world that no one ever heard of.
- [51:45]
Modi Rosenfeld
And you were how many years into doing comedy?
- [51:47]
Marc Maron
Two, three years.
- [51:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah. Who was up there still?
- [51:50]
Marc Maron
Stewie Stone, Alan King. Alan King.
- [51:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
He played a film.
- [51:56]
Marc Maron
I mean, I learned my cadence from comedians that were the top of the.
- [52:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
Top of that time. Of that time. Of that type.
- [52:05]
Marc Maron
Of that type.
- [52:05]
Modi Rosenfeld
Because I was like, I never, out of all of them, I never loved Alan King.
- [52:10]
Marc Maron
People ask me, who's your number one? That's him.
- [52:13]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [52:13]
Marc Maron
If you, you really? And now I watch myself and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm literally doing Alan King.
- [52:19]
Modi Rosenfeld
But you have so much more intensity. You're quicker.
- [52:22]
Marc Maron
Yes.
- [52:23]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, he was long winded.
- [52:26]
Marc Maron
Yeah. So I. Okay, so I think the last set I watched of myself, I thought I was a little long winded. I had him to move it a little quicker. Yeah.
- [52:37]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, that's interesting, because I saw him, I thought he was pompous. And I also felt that about Jackie Mason, that there was this arrogance to it. And I think Alan King, if I have a historical correct, he was the guy that, you know, made middle class Jews, gave them a voice. He was the guy that, you know, was.
- [52:55]
Marc Maron
We're doing well. We're doing well.
- [52:57]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right. We're out on the island. You know, we.
- [52:58]
Marc Maron
Right, right.
- [52:59]
Modi Rosenfeld
And that was different than, you know, the, you know, shtetl Jews or the Lower east side Jews. It was the. He was of the generation that was no longer in the Lower east side.
- [53:08]
Marc Maron
Correct.
- [53:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
And then it became sort of a middle class conversation. Right. Because I listened to, you know, I listened to some old Pat Cooper records, and he was the same for the Italians, Right. That, you know, we're not down there. Lower east side anymore.
- [53:21]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [53:21]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, we got a big house and we can, you know, family comes over and it's different. Our problems are different.
- [53:26]
Marc Maron
That's why. That's why I fell in love with him. Because it's like, here is a Jew, he's doing well. He's in a tuxedo. His special he taped in Carnegie Hall.
- [53:34]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [53:34]
Marc Maron
And it's big and it's over. And it's. And it's good. It's good. It's not like, you know, it's not. Take my wife, please. You know, Hannah Youngman. It's like, it was a step up. I loved it.
- [53:47]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah. Storyteller. But the stories of the Jewish middle class.
- [53:51]
Marc Maron
Yeah, but the other people can relate to.
- [53:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
But, like. Yeah, but Myron Cohen was still telling, you know, Hasidic jokes. Right, right, right. And it was still, you know, stories, you know, that have a biblical resonance. A story about a rabbi or this or that. It was still. It was different.
- [54:06]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:07]
Modi Rosenfeld
I mean, because, like, I saw Alan King in Vegas once when I went to, you know, it must have been in high school. We go meet my grandparents out there. I went to a show. It was one of the. It made me realize it was before I was, you know, doing comedy, obviously, but I really saw a guy. It was in one of the. It was. It Felt like a ballroom more than a showroom. But I saw a guy go out there, and it looked like he had to do it, that he was only going to do a certain amount of time, the 45 minutes it was in and out.
- [54:33]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [54:33]
Modi Rosenfeld
And it didn't seem like he really gave a shit. It seemed like, you know, this is just, you know, I got to do this. And I was. It was disappointing. And then, like, you know, he was a pretty good actor. I don't know why he didn't click with me. For me, it was like, Rickles. Buddy Hackett, you know, Buddy Hackett I loved as a kid.
- [54:51]
Marc Maron
So. But so when we came to America.
- [54:53]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [54:54]
Marc Maron
My mom was. My parents were figuring out, what are we doing? What's. What's our jam? Like, what's up? What are you gonna do with the kids?
- [54:59]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [54:59]
Marc Maron
We tried Disney, and we hated it.
- [55:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:02]
Marc Maron
Hated it.
- [55:03]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:03]
Marc Maron
Then my people told my parents, you know, this is in the 70s, so the Catskills were still going on.
- [55:08]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [55:08]
Marc Maron
So we went for one weekend to the Catskills. We left early.
- [55:12]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:12]
Marc Maron
My mom's like, we're not staying here. This food is disgusting. And they just. All they do is eat and sit in the lobby. This is not for us. But that Friday night, I saw Buddy hacking.
- [55:21]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:22]
Marc Maron
And I was blown away. I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening.
- [55:25]
Modi Rosenfeld
I'm dying.
- [55:26]
Marc Maron
And the entire room is just. He has them, like, at that. And, you know, and. And I have that in my show. Like, I have them. I know where I'm gonna get them. I massage. I'll massage a priest and rabbi joke into my act.
- [55:39]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:39]
Marc Maron
And they'll just boom. You hear the boom.
- [55:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
Boom.
- [55:42]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:42]
Marc Maron
You know when you. When you're at the Beacon, all of a sudden.
- [55:45]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:45]
Marc Maron
You feel it. You know, it's like, wow.
- [55:47]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [55:48]
Marc Maron
Yeah. It's. It's. It's. I. I love Alan King. And I'll tell you what. When we're doing Alan King stories, one time, I was. He was in the hotel. He was at the Nevilli. I was next door. I finished my set, ran over there and sat with him. There was a delay because of. Something happened. I saw him finish a bottle of 10 Gray.
- [56:07]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [56:07]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's what he always used to have that.
- [56:08]
Marc Maron
Oh, my God. And there was a little left. He pours into the cup and tells the guy on the stool. Stage left. Walks on, does an hour and 30 with a bottle of Tang. And destroyed. I never saw, like, just every joke, just waves of laughter and these Guys are guys that worked every night.
- [56:28]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah, I remember he did Conan one time when I was there, I think. And you know, Stu. Not Stu.
- [56:36]
Marc Maron
Frank Stone.
- [56:36]
Modi Rosenfeld
Frank. Frank Smiley, that segment producer over there. Yeah, he. I went over to Alan's dressing room and I don't know if he was there, but they had a bottle of Tank. Right. He needed to. Just to get it in, get it tanked up to get out there.
- [56:47]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [56:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's something you never had to do that.
- [56:50]
Marc Maron
I never, I never.
- [56:51]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, I mean, there are guys like Alan Zweibel and Richard Lewis that wrote for those guys. That's how they started, you know, in the 70s. They were just, you know, selling those guys jokes.
- [56:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
They take them.
- [57:02]
Marc Maron
They would take them.
- [57:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:02]
Marc Maron
And they. And they reused them and they.
- [57:04]
Modi Rosenfeld
So what happened with the. With the money job, you know, before.
- [57:09]
Marc Maron
So I was doing comedy full time and I was at the Cellar, Strip gigs, synagogues, everything. And still stayed at Merrill lynch for five years.
- [57:18]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [57:19]
Marc Maron
And then I. I had to leave in 99.
- [57:21]
Modi Rosenfeld
What were you doing there?
- [57:22]
Marc Maron
I was in international finance. I know my husband said I was a personality hire.
- [57:27]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [57:28]
Marc Maron
The more I tell him stories about what was going on there, they like having you around. Yeah, I was just. I was good with the clients.
- [57:33]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [57:34]
Marc Maron
I didn't know anything about finance.
- [57:35]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [57:35]
Marc Maron
I was just like. I. I didn't, I didn't. I was just like. But I knew where the money was going to come from and wait, they had money somewhere else and I was good at that. But I wasn't like. I wasn't a banking guy. So I was doing both jobs. I was at the Comedy Cell on the Strip. In a suit. Do you remember me? I used to go right from the bank to like a 9 o'clock spot in a suit. In a suit. And back then it was just over the top characters. I would just imitate the secretaries. It wasn't a Jewish voice yet. So I was like within a year, closing the show at the Comic Strip, Esti put me on right away. A year in, I was hosting there. It was this over the top character. Then the voice comes together, became a very Jewish voice.
- [58:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
When he started yelling, I stopped.
- [58:20]
Marc Maron
I still kind of yell. Well, I don't know if I'm yelling. I just. I'm loud.
- [58:24]
Modi Rosenfeld
Manic.
- [58:25]
Marc Maron
Manic.
- [58:25]
Modi Rosenfeld
But you're a little manic. I remember, like you back then.
- [58:28]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [58:29]
Marc Maron
I was doing over the top characters.
- [58:30]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [58:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
And then one of the characters was close to you and he stuck with that one.
- [58:38]
Marc Maron
I think so. Is that how it works? Is that how comedy works? Yeah.
- [58:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
You're going in at these characters and, you know, whatever you're doing to set them up.
- [58:44]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [58:45]
Modi Rosenfeld
Then that becomes you.
- [58:46]
Marc Maron
Yeah, I guess so. I guess that's a great way to see it.
- [58:49]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [58:50]
Marc Maron
Wow.
- [58:50]
Modi Rosenfeld
But. But when do you start? Because I. I mean, I. I remember you were around, and people, you know, do their lives and they. They make their money, you know, in ways that, I don't know, in terms of what they're doing in. Out there on the road or whatever. But it felt like for, you know, outside of doing the Catskills, I mean, you were still, you know, kind of trying to get. Make a living. Right. Trying to scrap together an audience.
- [59:13]
Marc Maron
I was working. You know, back then, you couldn't collect your audience. There wasn't. There weren't followers.
- [59:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [59:18]
Marc Maron
You just had to kill where you were and hope that the word got around. So I was working, but synagogues, charities.
- [59:25]
Modi Rosenfeld
So you would do that.
- [59:25]
Marc Maron
Galaxies.
- [59:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
Early on, you saw that there was a market for that early on, you.
- [59:30]
Marc Maron
Know, so don't forget that. They saw me in the Catskills in a tuxedo. I always performed in a tuxedo. And then they would see that and say, this would be nice for our synagogue. This would be nice for our charity. My wife is on the campsite.
- [59:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
Relatively clean.
- [59:42]
Marc Maron
Very clean. I never curse on stage. I never curse. And so that also helped. And then you pick up. And then I picked up comedy clubs as well. I was still, you know, all over, and I was making a living, bought an apartment. You know, it was great. And. And then things really, really clicked with me when Covid hit. Covid was the best thing that ever happened to me.
- [60:04]
Modi Rosenfeld
So that's. Recently.
- [60:06]
Marc Maron
Yeah, but, like.
- [60:08]
Modi Rosenfeld
So before, you were just kind of, like, making ends meet, running around, doing this or that, because, like, I don't know that it didn't seem like the. The logical path.
- [60:18]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [60:19]
Modi Rosenfeld
Where, you know, you do a Letterman, you do a. You know, you do a Fallon or whatever. That wasn't. That was not in the cards for you.
- [60:25]
Marc Maron
No.
- [60:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
Why is that?
- [60:27]
Marc Maron
I never did any. I sent them. Here's my four minutes. Here's my. Whatever. I was never in that world.
- [60:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
I was thinking something else.
- [60:33]
Marc Maron
I was never in that world. But I was making more money than any of those guys in that world. I was picking up. You know, I was doing. I was doing these fundraisers, charities, huge events, and. But I never had a Letterman. I never had a. Any of those credits back then. It was so important Coming to the stage now, Letterman, Carson. I used to always just say, you may. You may have seen him on Letterman. You may not. You may not. They may not have seen me. They may, but they may not have seen me on Letterman.
- [61:02]
Modi Rosenfeld
You weren't quite lying.
- [61:03]
Marc Maron
I wasn't. I wasn't. Comedy Central never looked at me and never. Nah. They never took anything with me. And so why?
- [61:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
Because you think you were too Jewish?
- [61:11]
Marc Maron
Maybe they thought I was too Jewish. Maybe they weren't. It was too loud. Maybe it was too loud for them.
- [61:16]
Modi Rosenfeld
You didn't get mad about that?
- [61:17]
Marc Maron
I didn't. I was too busy making a living to be worried about that.
- [61:20]
Periel Aschenbrand
Really?
- [61:20]
Modi Rosenfeld
It never bothered you?
- [61:21]
Marc Maron
Yeah, it irritated me.
- [61:23]
Modi Rosenfeld
Me.
- [61:23]
Marc Maron
It irritated me. Comedy is. Is. Is such a profession. It's such an insane. It's such a craft and a profession. If you were in a hospital and you were hiring a doctor, who should be hiring doctors? Other doctors.
- [61:37]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [61:38]
Marc Maron
Your comedy. It should be by other comedians that, like, they're like. It's. It's a crazy thing that the people who judge who. Who.
- [61:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, he was a comedian, but it's just. They're. They. But then they be. They're acting on behest of the show's interest, so they get to make the decision, like, we don't fit in with this.
- [61:55]
Marc Maron
But again, it never bothered me. I'm like, thank God I'm working. I always have. My schedule's always full. I always had gigs lined up. This synagogue's coming up that the stress factory, the funny bones somewhere got ahold of me and said, come here. We want to do something.
- [62:12]
Modi Rosenfeld
And it was just, do something for Jews.
- [62:14]
Marc Maron
Sometimes Jews. But then you came back, you know, for the non Jews.
- [62:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [62:19]
Marc Maron
And then I was on. I had. I had a stint where I toured with Ilan. No, with Stuttering John from the Howard Stern Show.
- [62:28]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [62:29]
Marc Maron
For two years.
- [62:30]
Modi Rosenfeld
What?
- [62:30]
Marc Maron
It was so much fun. I didn't realize how much fun we were having back then to.
- [62:36]
Modi Rosenfeld
How did that happen? So you getting all the Stern audience?
- [62:38]
Marc Maron
We got the Stern. It was the most insane thing. So I did all the comedy clubs all over the country.
- [62:43]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [62:44]
Marc Maron
In the best way you could ever do them. Stuttering John was on the Howard Stern Show.
- [62:49]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [62:50]
Marc Maron
He decided he's a comedian showing now he's a comedian. And now he was booking shows with me, Nick DePaolo, Jim Florentine, Jim Norton. And in the beginning, before they all blew up.
- [63:03]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [63:04]
Marc Maron
So he would take a comedy club and he'd like, hey, I'm hosting. And Come. And so the Stern show, if. If Howard Stern turned to him on Friday and said, hey, John, where are you and the boys gonna be this week? Me, Modi, Nick, the Poland are gonna be at the Comedy Connection in Boston. We end up adding two shows.
- [63:21]
Periel Aschenbrand
Really?
- [63:22]
Marc Maron
Just from that.
- [63:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
Boom. When was this?
- [63:24]
Marc Maron
This was, like, right after 9, 11.
- [63:27]
Modi Rosenfeld
So 2002.
- [63:28]
Marc Maron
Yeah. To 2003.
- [63:29]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [63:29]
Marc Maron
We did all the clubs all over America. It was so much fun.
- [63:33]
Modi Rosenfeld
And Howard would plug him if he did.
- [63:36]
Marc Maron
You couldn't ask for the plug.
- [63:37]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [63:37]
Marc Maron
But if he turned to John and said, where are you guys gonna be? And then we did a big show in Atlantic City. I don't remember. John had a boxing thing. I wasn't a Stern follower. I didn't know what was going on in the show. So, like.
- [63:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, he just liked you.
- [63:50]
Marc Maron
So what it was was this. You understand You're Jim. Nick Depaolo.
- [63:56]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [63:56]
Marc Maron
Okay. You have Jim Florentine. These are all guys.
- [63:59]
Periel Aschenbrand
Guys.
- [63:59]
Marc Maron
But they came there with a girl. So he put me on at the end. I was talking about my aerobics class. Even though I wasn't gay, I was like, the aerobics class. And this. And this denim doesn't match that. I didn't realize how gay I was.
- [64:12]
Modi Rosenfeld
But we did.
- [64:17]
Marc Maron
I never hid it from the comedians. Comedians all knew. I used to come with boyfriends to the table. I was always. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But that was a fun stint. It was a fun. And then back to working, you know?
- [64:29]
Modi Rosenfeld
Do you. I are. Do you talk about it now, being out?
- [64:33]
Marc Maron
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:33]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, yeah.
- [64:34]
Periel Aschenbrand
Oh, yeah.
- [64:34]
Marc Maron
Oh, amazing stuff.
- [64:35]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [64:36]
Marc Maron
Amazing. It was. Because it's. It was never really a part of me, you know, I was more Jewish than I was gay. Now I have a husband.
- [64:43]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [64:43]
Marc Maron
Who took over my career and changed my life.
- [64:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
During COVID During COVID Well, explain this Covid epiphany, this catharsis.
- [64:54]
Marc Maron
Covid hits.
- [64:55]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [64:56]
Marc Maron
Covid hits, and we're stuck at home.
- [64:59]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [64:59]
Marc Maron
You have a podcast, so you're already in Covid.
- [65:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:02]
Marc Maron
You know, so I. I have 7,000 followers on Instagram.
- [65:07]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:07]
Marc Maron
Now I'm home. I'm like, oh, a year off.
- [65:10]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:10]
Marc Maron
I have a year off. I'm ready to not work.
- [65:12]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:13]
Marc Maron
People are calling for zoom shows. I was the king. No one could do a zoom show better. Mark. I never. I never saw. God bless me.
- [65:24]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:24]
Marc Maron
More than when it came to. I said, I'm not doing a zoom show. You crazy.
- [65:27]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:27]
Marc Maron
My jokes into a computer.
- [65:29]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:30]
Marc Maron
Luckily, I saw. God showed me. Martin Scorsese interviewing Fran Leibowitz, the writer.
- [65:41]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:42]
Marc Maron
And I watched it, and I saw that he was her laugh track.
- [65:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [65:47]
Marc Maron
He was the entire audience of her laugh track.
- [65:49]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [65:49]
Marc Maron
So I began to do the Zoom shows. Congregation Beth, anywhere in the world. Okay. Beth, anywhere you want. Hires me for their event. So now I said, okay, it's gonna be me on the Zoom and three other people. Everybody else is hidden. And you guys, I would train them. You are my laugh track. When I say something funny, you have to laugh like you have a problem.
- [66:12]
Modi Rosenfeld
The other comics.
- [66:13]
Marc Maron
No, the other three. Like the board president, the rabbi, and Sheldon. Some guy.
- [66:20]
Modi Rosenfeld
And. But the idea is that. But there's still a hundred something people watching.
- [66:24]
Marc Maron
Thousands. That's how I built my entire. I did two events in London for a London organization. Now I sell out the Palladium. I built my entire London audience out there. This Zoom is the best thing. Those horrible shows on Zoom built me. I went like, 30,000 followers. 40,000. And my husband took over the whole thing. The social media, you need this. You need an agent. You need a promotion. And we began to. He just took over. And just like. Like, imagine having a millennial in your life. It's just the most amazing thing that could ever happen to anybody.
- [67:00]
Modi Rosenfeld
How old is he?
- [67:01]
Marc Maron
He's 32.
- [67:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [67:03]
Marc Maron
And like a genius. And whatever he does. And so.
- [67:06]
Modi Rosenfeld
So. So you just kept doing Zoom shows.
- [67:09]
Marc Maron
I was doing the Zoom shows.
- [67:10]
Modi Rosenfeld
And that could be anywhere in the world.
- [67:11]
Marc Maron
Anywhere. Australia. We just sold out, like, a whole tour in Australia because of those Zoom shows. They built that. And then the audience kept following me. And now we're feeding the machine up.
- [67:20]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah, yeah, right?
- [67:20]
Marc Maron
And I had these two characters. I did this Israeli character, Nir. Not far. Hi, it's Nir. And people, they couldn't get enough. And I did this Hasidic character. I got up in Hasidic drag, and I would just do this Hasidic guy. And people love both of those characters. It went viral on WhatsApp. Groups that are all over the Jewish world. And Leo's like, okay, when Covid ends, we need to figure out what you're gonna do.
- [67:44]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [67:45]
Marc Maron
And he began to. He found a promoting company. Found.
- [67:48]
Modi Rosenfeld
No shit.
- [67:49]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Oh, my God. And we finally got to UTA with Michael Grinspan, who is, like, beyond a blessing from God.
- [67:57]
Modi Rosenfeld
Booking agent.
- [67:57]
Marc Maron
Yeah, he's our booking agent. And, like, we're. I couldn't be happier.
- [68:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's crazy. So now, like, now when you do this, is it still primarily Jews?
- [68:08]
Marc Maron
It is. And then. And Then I went with, like, be true to your audience and the rest will follow.
- [68:15]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [68:15]
Marc Maron
So now. Yes, it began. The first round of talk. Boring was Jews. And then the Jews brought their non Jewish friends. Yeah, like, you got to see this. Come, let me show you Jewish comedy. Come, come, come, come, come. This is gonna be fun. You're gonna love it. And then. And then the gay thing, like, the gay clips went out. So now we have goyim gays. And they. Yeah, that's the new audience besides the Jews. And then anybody who caught me that wasn't Jewish would tell other Jewish friends, have you seen this committee? Yeah, you've got to come see. And they would bring them. And it's just like. And that's. So now when I go, who here is not Jewish? Half the room sometimes.
- [68:51]
Modi Rosenfeld
No kidding.
- [68:51]
Marc Maron
That's so great. It's my favorite thing.
- [68:54]
Modi Rosenfeld
But it's funny because you are the Jew.
- [68:56]
Marc Maron
Yes, I am.
- [68:57]
Modi Rosenfeld
And it's not. It's unique.
- [68:59]
Marc Maron
Yeah, right.
- [69:01]
Modi Rosenfeld
I mean, do you. Do you have peers, like Israeli comedians or do you know people that represent like, you do?
- [69:09]
Marc Maron
No, I don't. I don't. I don't. It's really comedians or Israeli comedians? I perform in Israel. I have them as opening acts and all that. But it's my experience, so my Israeli audience used to be mostly Americans and England people, and they moved to Israel. Ex PACs. I forgot what you call them. And then now Israelis found me. So now I just did the Brafman center in Tel Aviv, which is 3,000 people. It was half Israelis and half that just moved there. We all live in Israel, and I was able to relate to both of them because I'm from America, I'm from Israel, I'm from this and that.
- [69:49]
Modi Rosenfeld
And you speak to all that.
- [69:50]
Marc Maron
And I speak to all that. And I was able to drop all the Hebrew and all of that, and it was amazing.
- [69:56]
Modi Rosenfeld
So when you do, like in England, so you get the full spectrum. You got Orthodox there.
- [70:02]
Marc Maron
You got everything. 18 to 88. 18 to 88 is the age range. And you see yarmulkes, you see. You see black hats. And then you see gay couples.
- [70:15]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [70:15]
Marc Maron
That. You know, that one's not Jewish and one is Jewish. And all of that in that you see. In the whole room. Yeah. It's amazing, huh? Yeah.
- [70:24]
Modi Rosenfeld
So now you're a big star.
- [70:25]
Marc Maron
I'm a big star. I'm a hu. My husband made me a big star. Yeah. We added something to. When we got married, we said we have to. We live by three rules. Rules. Hydrate, moisturize, and be nice. We added one more monetize. He monetized me.
- [70:43]
Modi Rosenfeld
So now you're going to do your. At the will turn here. Sold out.
- [70:46]
Marc Maron
Sold out. Thank God. He loves to sell out. He. When he. When we put a show out, he goes into a mode of like, you know, when you're in college and you have an exam or a paper you have to hand in until it's sold out. He feels like it's like he has to do all that work.
- [71:02]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [71:03]
Marc Maron
But it's finally sold out. Okay, we're done with that. I'm gonna plug it. We just need to say it's sold out.
- [71:06]
Modi Rosenfeld
And you just do all the plugging on the Instagram.
- [71:09]
Marc Maron
Instagram. TikTok he runs. We have a whole social media thing. I only look at the. At the. At the Instagram account and I answer.
- [71:18]
Modi Rosenfeld
And then what's the followers now? How many?
- [71:21]
Marc Maron
365.
- [71:22]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah.
- [71:23]
Marc Maron
Thousand.
- [71:23]
Modi Rosenfeld
Huh.
- [71:24]
Marc Maron
It's really nice. And it's growing, growing steadily. And all the tiktoks and everything else he runs, I don't look at any of it. And we. Company. And by the way, even though we haven't seen each other in 20 years, I want to just tell you for. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations on all of your success.
- [71:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, thank you.
- [71:41]
Marc Maron
And I hope you're enjoying it. And I will tell you that your podcast with Chris Hayes.
- [71:47]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [71:47]
Marc Maron
Was insane. Oh, good. It blew me away. Oh, good. On the treadmill for an hour and 40 minutes. Something. It was so good. I stayed for the guitar. It was so good. I was like, no, no. This is. His real passion is in that. I gotta listen to that. You were unbelievable. Listen, you're in thousands in your podcast. We began doing. Leo said, we're doing a podcast. Okay. We're doing a podcast. We did a podcast and now we're 150 in. We had our 100th anniversary one. We did it at the 92nd street one. But just like, you are unbelievable at this. And that one was like, wow.
- [72:28]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, yeah. I'll give you the book.
- [72:29]
Marc Maron
Yeah. It was so good. It was. You always, like, talk about, like, the. The. Your audience brings you gifts, but you have to understand your connection to your audiences.
- [72:41]
Modi Rosenfeld
I do. I do.
- [72:42]
Marc Maron
It's.
- [72:42]
Modi Rosenfeld
You know, and I've grown more gracious, you know, I've always was pretty gracious because they do have a relationship with you and you have to honor that. You know, like, when you do a podcast, they know things about your life, you know, and they ask you questions. About the thing that you talked about, and you don't know them, but, you know, it makes me happy. There's a familiarity to it all. They're familiar with me.
- [73:06]
Marc Maron
It's what's gonna get you into heaven. I don't know if you know that.
- [73:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
Oh, thank God.
- [73:10]
Marc Maron
So in the Talmud, it talks about comedians. Yes, it literally speaks about comedians in the Talmud. Okay. And it talks about. In the marketplace. In the marketplace, there was Elijah. The prophet was there. And so two people asked him, who here has a place in the world to come in heaven? Like, in other words, you're done. You did it. You don't have to come back in another reincarnation.
- [73:35]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right?
- [73:35]
Marc Maron
And he goes. The two guys over there, they go and ask him, what do you do? And he said, we are men of laughter, of jokes. They're comedians. They're comedians. They're comedians. We. And then what do we do? We make people who are sad happy. And when there's a riff through comedy, we bring peace. That's their job. So one night on ketamine, at a rave. At a techno rave.
- [74:02]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah.
- [74:03]
Marc Maron
I'm, like, with my husband in my arms, just, like, shirtless, bopping back and forth, and I'm just. This was going in my head. There's two comedians. Yeah. I'm like, why is there two comedians?
- [74:14]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [74:14]
Marc Maron
Why would there. If the Talmud doesn't waste words and stuff, if when I say the comedians have a portion in the world to come and say, the guy over there is a comic, I'll go ask him what he does. But it's two. And I realized the comic can't be alone. He needs. You got this podcast. Those of you who don't know, I'm blown away. Mark sat down, hit the buttons, and we began. But you're sending it to somebody.
- [74:39]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [74:39]
Marc Maron
And they're gonna figure it all out.
- [74:41]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [74:41]
Marc Maron
That's the other guy. That's the other guy. I could be working the back of synagogues the rest of my life, but my husband came into my life, and now I'm performing for, you know, arenas.
- [74:52]
Modi Rosenfeld
But it also could be the guy who you go, like, tell me, is this funny? I'm not gonna. You tell me if it's funny. Like, the second guy could be the guy that gives him the punchlines.
- [75:02]
Marc Maron
It is. It is your friends who you run, who you run material by. But it could also be. Let me tell you what. What else it is. I really saw again during COVID some guy had a huge synagogue in Scarsdale, big synagogue, and there was a Riff in the synagogue. Because Covid's like coming to an end but not coming to an end. You can't imagine the young people in the synagogue with no masks. And the older people were still in those FEMA tents outside, pretending being outside is okay. And one guy said, what would it cost to bring Modi here to do a show? He called, he paid, he cut a check. Boom. For Modi to come and do a show. And for that night, everybody came in. They took the main ballroom where the bar mitzvahs happening, and put the spread out chairs. And it was the first time that the whole synagogue laughed together and there were no riffs and everybody was happy. And that's moshiach energy. There's a moment of messianic energy in that room. Oneness. And that guy was the second guy in the two comedians over there. Yeah, he was. It doesn't say comedians. Men. Not men. People. We are people of laughter.
- [76:13]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [76:13]
Marc Maron
So he created that laughter. Yeah, he brought me in.
- [76:17]
Modi Rosenfeld
Right.
- [76:17]
Marc Maron
That's like. That's an insane energy. Yeah, it's.
- [76:21]
Modi Rosenfeld
Did the riff go away permanently?
- [76:23]
Marc Maron
It definitely helped. Listen, they've all. They came in, they all put their dumb masks for a second, they gave it a break and they laughed. And it was amazing. And it was. It was such an amazing evening. And you know, and they reminded me of the time during 2016.
- [76:41]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [76:42]
Marc Maron
When Trump got elected. The first time there was a synagogue in Pennsylvania and there was a riff right down the middle. People like brothers wouldn't talk to each other who were in the same synagogue. And then the first thing that brought everybody back together was a comedy night. Kambi and I brought everybody back together. It was to the point that they had two different services. Can you imagine how crazy that is?
- [77:04]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [77:04]
Marc Maron
How ungodly that is?
- [77:06]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [77:07]
Marc Maron
Cause just they were so in such a rift over Trump.
- [77:09]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [77:10]
Marc Maron
It's an insane situation.
- [77:11]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, I'm glad that we were each other's second person today.
- [77:15]
Marc Maron
Yeah. Today this is right here. Two comics, two men of laughter, making people who are sad happy and bringing peace.
- [77:25]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [77:26]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, I'm glad to be part of it.
- [77:28]
Marc Maron
It's an honor to be on Shebadika with you today.
- [77:31]
Modi Rosenfeld
Nez. Good to see you, man.
- [77:33]
Marc Maron
Good to see you.
- [77:39]
Modi Rosenfeld
There you go again. Very Jewish, very Jewy. I know. Again, you can get his tour dates, listen to his podcast, and check out his special at. @modilive.com M O D I hang out for a minute, folks. People, we love la. And I'm saying we because I already love it. And I know that when you visit here, you'll love it too. Whether you're looking for the best taco trucks or a standout Michelin star restaurant, la's got you covered. I just went down to Joy on York in my old neighborhood of Highland park, which I love for the authentic Taiwanese food. Or you can go to Bodmash up on Fairfax across from Cantor's kind of hot rotted Indian food. Or go to Canters. I actually go now for a vegan Reuben. And of course LA is known for entertainment, but this place is also a world class hub of art, music, museums and live theater. Check out the European art collection at the Getty Center. Go to hear the LA Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert hall. And you can also come here and do all those LA things you've heard about. Go to Universal Studios, check out the Griffith Park Observatory, see the view from Mulholland Drive, check out the Hollywood Sign. You we can't pass up all the classic LA stuff. Find more ways to love Los angeles@discover la.com hey folks, I've been doing this a long time, more than 15 years, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, when I hear from my listeners, they not only know me, they know my sponsors. Research shows that 74% of listeners recall the brands they hear when listening to podcasts. So if you're a business owner or marketer and you want your business to be top of mind, podcast advertising with ACAST is the way to go. If you're ready to be heard, run podcast ads with acast by visiting go.acast.com Marc hey people, we've got more outtakes from recent episodes up on the Full Marin. This week you'll hear stuff that didn't make it into the episodes with Mo Amer, Carrie Coon, and this bit of manic research during the talk I had with Chris Fleming.
- [79:45]
Chris Fleming
Wild outfits.
- [79:46]
Periel Aschenbrand
Yeah.
- [79:46]
Modi Rosenfeld
What was her name? Oh God, why am I forgetting her name? The bangs. The famous bangs of his. You know, the one who kind of invented that haircut. She was an actress.
- [79:57]
Chris Fleming
Cleopatra.
- [79:59]
Modi Rosenfeld
No, it was. Oh man, my Liz Taylor. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
- [80:05]
Chris Fleming
We could google her famous. Famous bang. Who invented bangs?
- [80:09]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah, the Lulu Brooks. Was it maybe Lulu Brooks? No, there was another one. A vixen.
- [80:15]
Chris Fleming
A vixen.
- [80:16]
Modi Rosenfeld
Lulu Brooks was a silent actress and she did the Bob Bang thing.
- [80:19]
Chris Fleming
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
- [80:23]
Modi Rosenfeld
How am I gonna Google this?
- [80:26]
Chris Fleming
Lulu Brooks or.
- [80:27]
Modi Rosenfeld
No, no, I know Lulu Brooks.
- [80:28]
Chris Fleming
It's not who I'm thinking of when you say vixen. Are you Saying, like, you personally find her to be a vixen or she had.
- [80:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
Well, there's Louise Brooks and she was definitely part of it.
- [80:35]
Chris Fleming
Yep. Oh, yeah, those are pretty straight. That's like a ruler across the forehead.
- [80:40]
Modi Rosenfeld
But there was another one. The most iconic bangs in history. Maybe that'll do it.
- [80:47]
Chris Fleming
What about Famous Vixens of yesteryear?
- [80:49]
Modi Rosenfeld
Famous Vixens of Yesteryear. These were all too new.
- [80:53]
Chris Fleming
I'm thinking Otsuko.
- [80:54]
Marc Maron
She's.
- [80:55]
Chris Fleming
That's kind of.
- [80:56]
Modi Rosenfeld
I don't think she bangs. Actress with.
- [81:07]
Chris Fleming
Wait, I'll look on my phone, too.
- [81:08]
Modi Rosenfeld
Bangs. Let's get the whole team in this old days.
- [81:14]
Periel Aschenbrand
Okay.
- [81:14]
Chris Fleming
Okay. The most iconic bangs throughout history. This has got to be it, man. Okay, we got Jet. Louise Brooks.
- [81:19]
Modi Rosenfeld
Yeah, I got that one.
- [81:20]
Chris Fleming
Okay. Clara Bow.
- [81:21]
Modi Rosenfeld
Bettie Page. Betty Page.
- [81:23]
Chris Fleming
Betty Davis. No Betty Page.
- [81:25]
Modi Rosenfeld
Hold on, let me see if I'm right.
- [81:26]
Chris Fleming
Well, she's not number Audrey Hepburn. She's not in the top. Bettie Page. Number five. Look, you got her.
- [81:32]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's it.
- [81:32]
Chris Fleming
You got it.
- [81:33]
Modi Rosenfeld
That's it. That's the haircut. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [81:36]
Chris Fleming
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- [81:37]
Modi Rosenfeld
You can get that episode as well as all the bonus episodes we do twice a week by signing up for the full Marin. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast. Here's some guitar. You know the kind of guitar that I do you. You know. Here we go. Boomer lives. Monkey and La Fonda. Cat Angels everywhere.