Moshe Kasher #2 (Re-Release)

Summary

Podcast Summary: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes - Episode: Moshe Kasher #2 (Re-Release)

Introduction: Re-Release and Episode Popularity Released on July 2, 2025, this re-release of Episode #197 featuring Moshe Kasher stands out as one of the most beloved episodes of You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. The decision to re-release stems from significant online chatter and a nostalgic appreciation among listeners. As Moshe aptly puts it, "I believe it's episode 197, 193. Being the most beloved, you made it weird of all time" (00:16).

Reunion of Hosts: Reflecting on the Journey The episode kicks off with Pete Holmes and Moshe Kasher reminiscing about their longstanding friendship and previous collaborations. They discuss the evolution of their lives and careers since their last interaction on the show, highlighting how both have grown and changed over nearly 200 episodes. Moshe remarks, "Things have changed for both of us. It's a big journey" (07:30), underscoring the depth of their shared history.

Coping with Pain through Humor: The Role of Laughter in Trauma A significant portion of the conversation delves into the intersection of humor and suffering. Moshe introduces the concept, emphasizing that humor serves as a coping mechanism for enduring immense pain. "People make jokes about very horrific things so that they can live through them," he explains (35:15). Pete echoes this sentiment, referencing Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, where Frankl asserts that "the best of us perished in the camps" because compassionate individuals were often the first to fall victim. This tragic irony fuels their belief in the power of humor to transcend pain.

Religious Upbringing and Family Dynamics: Navigating Faith and Identity Both hosts share personal stories about their religious upbringings, particularly within the Jewish faith. Pete recounts his tumultuous experiences with a highly observant Hasidic upbringing, detailing the pressure to conform and the emotional ramifications of his parents' divorce. "My father was a painter... he was a real freako artist," Pete shares (32:36), painting a vivid picture of his family's complex dynamics. Moshe adds his perspective on balancing religious expectations with personal identity, highlighting the challenges of maintaining authenticity in a rigid faith environment.

Cognitive Dissonance and Stereotypes: Challenging Religious Norms The discussion naturally transitions to the cognitive dissonance that arises when religious beliefs clash with modern societal norms. They explore how stereotypes, particularly within Judaism, can be both harmful and reductive. Pete humorously critiques media portrayals, noting, "They have their own vernacular. It's not a dialect because you would understand it, but it's a very..." (96:13), reflecting on how language can both connect and alienate within religious communities.

Personal Growth and Relationships: From Transactional to Authentic Connections Pete opens up about his journey from engaging in purely transactional relationships to embracing monogamy with Natasha Leggero. He contrasts his previous superficial connections with the deeper, more meaningful bond he now shares, stating, "It's like taking on a partner to walk with" (66:37). Moshe resonates with this transformation, emphasizing the importance of vulnerability and honesty in fostering authentic relationships.

Conclusion: Embracing Authenticity through Humor and Vulnerability The episode culminates in a heartfelt reflection on the importance of authenticity and the therapeutic role of humor. Both Pete and Moshe acknowledge the struggles of overcoming past traumas and the societal pressures to conform. Pete encapsulates this journey, saying, "I'm not a romantic... I don't feel like love has fulfilled me or has fundamentally made me a different person" (60:15). However, through candid conversation and laughter, they reinforce the idea that embracing one's true self, even in the face of discomfort, is essential for personal growth and healing.

Notable Quotes:

• Moshe Kasher [35:15]: "Anything you ever laugh at, you'll never be ashamed of again."
• Pete Holmes [66:37]: "It's like taking on a partner to walk with."
• Pete Holmes [07:30]: "Things have changed for both of us. It's a big journey."
• Pete Holmes [60:15]: "I'm not a romantic... I don't feel like love has fulfilled me or has fundamentally made me a different person."

Final Thoughts This episode of You Made It Weird masterfully intertwines personal anecdotes with profound discussions on faith, pain, and the healing power of humor. Moshe Kasher and Pete Holmes offer listeners a candid and relatable exploration of overcoming adversity through laughter and authentic connections, making it a standout episode for both new listeners and long-time fans.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You made it with. You made it with. You made it with. Oh, yeah, you made it with. Yes, you did.

[Pete Holmes]

You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[Moshe Kasher]

What's happening, weirdos?

[Unknown Speaker 2]

This is a summer re release of Moshe Casher, the second time he was on the show. I picked this episode because looking online, lot of chatter, a lot of chatter about this. I believe it's episode 197, 193. Being the most beloved, you made it weird of all time. And yes, you could have just looked for it, scrubbed through the archives trying to find it, but it's so fun to re release it, so it shows up in all the weirdos feeds and we can get that cozy feeling that we are all listening to it and enjoying it together.

[Moshe Kasher]

So we're so glad you're here.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Moshe is doing his Endless Honeymoon podcast tour right now with with his hilarious wife, Natasha Leggero, starting July 3rd in Los Angeles. Then he's July 6th in Oakland with Kamau Bell. July 15th in Seattle with Sir Mix A Lot. July 16th with Kyle Kanane in Portland. And then they're going to be. He's going to be doing standup in Eugene, Oregon, July 17th through 19th. Tickets are all available at moshacasher.com as are my tour dates. We got them all on there. We got some new dates on there. Chicago, we got Florida at the Miami Improv.

[Moshe Kasher]

Lots of stuff. Cleveland, Ohio.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Spokane, Washington, Boston, New Jersey. We're going to be adding New York very soon. All of Those are on peteholmes.com Hope.

[Moshe Kasher]

You can be there.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And the show. We don't do traditional ads in the sense that I only promote things that I actually use and actually love. So, Katie, roll that beautiful bean footage and then we'll get right into the episode.

[Moshe Kasher]

Hit it.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

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[Moshe Kasher]

All right everybody, we're so glad you're here.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Moshe Casher returns. He's back. Let's enjoy. Get into it.

[Moshe Kasher]

This is where he said, it's been a while. It's been a while, old chum. I'm wearing my earphones. It's funny because we were just talking in the car.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.

[Pete Holmes]

It's different now.

[Moshe Kasher]

Do we do that?

[Pete Holmes]

Do what?

[Moshe Kasher]

A bunch of yo's.

[Pete Holmes]

We. Could.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

We talk about.

[Moshe Kasher]

I just was crying with laughter. Crying with laughter.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

We're not gonna get specific, but it was because it's a little too graphic or whatever. The idea of a studio. Can we say it?

[Moshe Kasher]

It's like your private idea.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, it's a private idea. We could talk about it.

[Moshe Kasher]

You don't want people to steal it.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, someday we'll do it, but we can't really have the fun with it because it was about such a specific character.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, it was about a specific character, but let's just say someone was taking a dump.

[Pete Holmes]

We have a lot of fun with shit. We were talking shit.

[Moshe Kasher]

We were talking shit.

[Pete Holmes]

We literally were talking shit.

[Moshe Kasher]

And we quoted my friend Rob Buscemi, who. Who's done this show, and we were talking about how talking shit is one of the few pleasures. And that led to actually a real.

[Pete Holmes]

Good shit story about someone taking a shit with her mother there, stroking her hair to help her along. Steam, for some reason, inexplicably coming up from her ankles. Cause I imagine like a pipe burst due to effort.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, no.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, that's all I want to say.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

If I'm being honest.

[Moshe Kasher]

What really made me laugh was the idea of a TV show, including footage of a woman straining to take a shit. And we were going.

[Pete Holmes]

Honey, you go, go.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And there's a scene happening next to them that has nothing to do with it.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's all we'll say.

[Pete Holmes]

How are you, Pete?

[Moshe Kasher]

Are you comfortable with that?

[Pete Holmes]

I'm totally comfortable.

[Moshe Kasher]

How are you, Moshi?

[Pete Holmes]

I'm fine. Are we already recording? Is this the podcast?

[Moshe Kasher]

What are you doing a bit?

[Pete Holmes]

No, this is. There was no intro.

[Moshe Kasher]

There was no intro when you did it.

[Pete Holmes]

What were you. Episode was a long time ago.

[Moshe Kasher]

What episode number were you. Do you know what?

[Pete Holmes]

No.

[Moshe Kasher]

Aristot's on it.

[Pete Holmes]

A stot. A stot. Stat.

[Moshe Kasher]

Aristotle over here.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, man. Yeah. It was a long time ago. You know, things have changed.

[Moshe Kasher]

Things have changed for both of us. It's a big journey. It's a big journey. Well, that's something we were talking about on the way over. Cause we've Given this no thought, but I just wanted. I wanted to have you back on for a long time. And he was episode number six.

[Pete Holmes]

Number six. And what episode are we on right now?

[Moshe Kasher]

This is like 197.

[Pete Holmes]

You know how you know it's been too long since you've been on one of your good friends podcasts. When people ask you or you see on the Internet, people go, you should do an episode with Moshe Kasher. And they're like, it happened already six.

[Moshe Kasher]

It happened almost 200 episodes ago.

[Pete Holmes]

That's insane. This is before all the hubbub.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, that's true. You helped us break into the hubbub.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I'm sure I played instrumental part.

[Moshe Kasher]

We owe you big time.

[Pete Holmes]

That was a good episode. Yeah, fuck guy. That's what people do. They come up to me after shows and they go, you're a fuck guy, Right? They're referencing our episode. They want some counsel or they want some dick?

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, the girls come up and say.

[Pete Holmes]

They want some dick. Counsel.

[Moshe Kasher]

They want some dick.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm sure they don't. They just want to talk. They want to connect to me on a Pete Holmes level. And I have to tell them, honey, sweetie, let's go into the bathroom, take a shit. I have some bad news.

[Moshe Kasher]

And as it plops you go, I got a girlfriend.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not a fuck guy anymore.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, you still are. Here's the thing. You are. We've discussed this a little bit after. I've had. Since my ex wife, I've had three girlfriends. And then I took a break. I was single for the first time. Kumaila and I. I thought you were.

[Pete Holmes]

Gonna say you took a lover.

[Moshe Kasher]

I took a lover that winter.

[Pete Holmes]

That winter I took a lover. I wintered in the woods and took a lover indeed. Even as the fire burned low, I laid her down upon that bearskin rug and I took her there and she became a woman with my gauntlet. Why were you wearing a gauntlet? Now I'm picturing you naked, laying on top of a young woman with two gauntlets on. Because, you know, the gauntlet is like the.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Is that what it is?

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a wrist chalice? No, a gauntlet is something you actually wear on your wrist or. Or conversely, it's a really cool multiplayer game from the early 90s. Welcome, Blue Warrior. You chose Elf? Yeah, man.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Back in those days, if a video game talked, you were onto something.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, do you. Are you the one that does an altered beast joke? Rise from your grave.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Rise from your grave.

[Moshe Kasher]

It always sounded like they Were underwater a little bit.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Welcome to your doom. That's what he would say before he threw his face at you.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you do any impressions? I do too. Do you want to hear them?

[Moshe Kasher]

Since you've been on the show, I've done a lot of different impressions.

[Pete Holmes]

Really?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What? On the show? On this show?

[Moshe Kasher]

On this show.

[Pete Holmes]

I think you did a Picard. I remember.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

On the show. Remember on your show, Frillo Pussy. Captain Picard, because he's on the holodeck.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And he's like, computer, show me two Dominican MILFs.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just watching. I do Stephen Hawking.

[Moshe Kasher]

Let's hear it.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not a particularly groundbreaking one.

[Moshe Kasher]

I want to hear it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh.

[Moshe Kasher]

What should I say, Steven, what's the name of your book?

[Pete Holmes]

My book? My book is called My Book. My book is called I hope they Serve Beer in Hell.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That's not your book. It's called.

[Pete Holmes]

My book is called the Game A Guide to Getting Pussy While Still Chained to a Wheelchair Due to Lou Gehrig's Disease. My body is a prison while my mind earth freedom incarnate.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You can't say my body's a prison.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't. Steven did.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But you just gotta make it better with but my mind is freedom incarnate.

[Pete Holmes]

I am one of the great geniuses of this time. But even I do not like people of color. That's racist. Stephen Hawking.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

What do you think of Chinese people?

[Pete Holmes]

They're Chinese hard workers. Without them, no railroad. But I don't understand why they don't just speak English. It's America, for God's sake. Speak English, goddammit. Even I, who cannot actually speak at all, choose to type in English.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

English.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounds like he's got an accent, though. But that's pretty. That's one.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm weeping a good amount. They're committing to English.

[Pete Holmes]

Say what you will. All about Adolf Hitler. You certainly had some good ideas. And boy, oh boy, what a public speaker.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Racist. Racist. Stephen Hawking. Boy, oh boy. Boy, oh boy.

[Pete Holmes]

My favorite. My favorite rock band. Definitely Damn Yankees. Wow, that Ted Nugent. What a shredder. And also what a patriot.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Patriot English.

[Pete Holmes]

English hard workers.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Somehow he's got a software that at.

[Pete Holmes]

The end of every sentence, it just upticks a bit. English incarnates. Hard workers. The nude. Hold on. I want to sing my favorite damn Yankee song. Can you take me high enough? It's never over. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you know that song by Damn Yankees? Can you take me high enough?

[Moshe Kasher]

That's a Creed song.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's not. Or maybe it is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, no, that was a joke.

[Pete Holmes]

So that's one. Uh huh. I feel like I shouldn't even bother doing the other one. That was so fun. English, you're tuned in too. You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[Moshe Kasher]

There's a small child.

[Pete Holmes]

Small child.

[Moshe Kasher]

I just saw a small child and it wasn't Gill.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh man, that was fun.

[Moshe Kasher]

Wait, I feel like as a host, I should buffer so you don't feel like you need to follow Stephen Hawking.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. There's no way that I'll go up.

[Moshe Kasher]

And I'll do some time. I don't know what I should do. I, you know, I lean on Schwarzenegger a lot. It's very fun.

[Pete Holmes]

Your Schwarzenegger is really great. You know what the secret to a good impression is? I'm not an impressionist at all.

[Moshe Kasher]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

But I feel like the secret for me to a good impression is not being good.

[Moshe Kasher]

You know, I'm going to agree with you. And it also has a lot to do with when I was married. I said this before. When I was married, I used to feel like, I think maybe I could do impressions, but I didn't believe in myself. And there was something about, like, being married that solidified me being like, well, this is who I am. You know what I mean? There was something final about it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I've already become the man that I am.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I am him. I am he.

[Pete Holmes]

I am him.

[Moshe Kasher]

I did that English. I did that wrong. But for some reason then when I got divorced, I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna be like, like, I'm a, I'm a real sucker for bad comics doing like a Schwarzenegger.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, sure.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like, here, Schwarzenegger coming. Like, sure, I will, I'll, I'll laugh at that. I'll hate it. You know what I mean? No, there are some things, you know what I mean? I'll hate it in a way.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I understand what you're saying. There are some things that are so funny that people do sincerely that if you say, like, I used to do this joke. I used to do this joke where I would say, you ever be fucking a bitch? And it's hilarious. I would say, you ever be fucking a bitch? You'd be all fucking her, you know, I'd be like, ooh, I'm fucking you, bitch.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then we went in this joke. The real joke was like, people should stop calling women bitches.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's misogynistic.

[Moshe Kasher]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Blah, blah, blah. And I don't know what they're talking about. They're like, dog, you gotta come to this party. There's gonna be tons of bitches there. I'm like, oh, no, that's the joke. But the impetus to the joke was I was an open mic. I don't know if this is jokes thievery or not. I don't think it is. Because I saw this open micr in Denver. He was saying, you ever be fucking a bitch? But, like, there was no jokey twist. He meant it. Do you ever be fucking a bitch?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I just thought it was so funny that a person said something that stupid.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That bull, you know?

[Moshe Kasher]

Was he a black man?

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no.

[Moshe Kasher]

Hell no.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no. I would not have stayed that night to watch that bullshit. What's up with this daft comedy?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, racist, racist Stephen Hawking.

[Pete Holmes]

What are you doing back Deaf Comedy Jam was the worst thing to ever happen to comedy. The boo collar guys, man. That's my shit. I love that Dunham. You know you're a redneck when your body no longer functions due to Al.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No, no, no, no.

[Pete Holmes]

He goes, you know you're. You know you're a redneck when your neck no longer is manipulatable by your own brain. You have to have an assistant move it for you. I'm gonna piss people off.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, my God. Well, that's kind of. That's a little bit of the fun, I suppose.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's kind of like. It's like laughing is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Nobody thinks ALS is funny, but this is a.

[Pete Holmes]

This is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's cartoonish, I guess.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't think it's funny. It's just, you know. And also, Stephen Hawking's not racist. I'm sure he's not.

[Moshe Kasher]

It would be funny if he was. If he just had some. Really, you know, he's a three dimensional person. We think of him as a guy who's like, let me explain the universe to you in colloquial terms.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right, totally. And that's.

[Moshe Kasher]

Occasionally he's like, that Janet you had over yesterday, she's a Cunt.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. No, 100%. That's the whole thing with Martin Luther K. You know, people. You know, the great Achilles healed Martin Luther King is. People say that he wasn't faithful to his wife, but it's like, well, of course he wasn't. There isn't a Jesus. I mean, there is, but you know what I mean? No one's a real saint. That doesn't really exist. You know, Gandhi had. Gandhi was a wife beater or something weird. Like that. He was. Well, Aristotle, look it up. What's wrong with Gandhi? There's something bad about Gandhi, too.

[Moshe Kasher]

Gandhi.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, everybody's got a problem.

[Moshe Kasher]

Welcome back to Going Going Gandhi, where we break down iconic figures of history.

[Pete Holmes]

You're tuned in to Goin Goin Gandhi. I got here on the line, I've got Mother Teresa. Now, Mother Teresa, it says here that you were firmly against birth control. Is that correct?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I didn't know if I was. You know, see, and like, fully acknowledge. I don't think she was Spanish, was she?

[Pete Holmes]

What was she? She was from Calcutta. But was she Indian? I don't think so.

[Moshe Kasher]

I think she might have been Indian.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. She would have been more like, hey, welcome. Right? I mean, am I right, guys? Am I right, you guys? No. What did you find? What is it about Gandhi? Bad thing about Gandhi.

[Moshe Kasher]

Going Going Gandhi. Up next, Ryan Seacrest hates the Jews.

[Pete Holmes]

That actually probably is true.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well.

[Pete Holmes]

Intolerant, tyrannical.

[Moshe Kasher]

Really.

[Pete Holmes]

What did you google?

[Moshe Kasher]

What's wrong with Gandhi?

[Pete Holmes]

I googled Gandhi was a bad person.

[Moshe Kasher]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Googled Gandhi was a bad person.

[Moshe Kasher]

Did it fill it in for you? At what point? At B? Not at all. Not at all. It kept trying to change your topic. It was like, Gandhi's great.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, one of the things that people don't know about Bill W. The guy that started Alcoholics Anonymous, people. People within AA know, but they don't like to talk about it too much and they like to excuse it away.

[Moshe Kasher]

Only ate venison.

[Pete Holmes]

That's correct. Yeah. No, he would not go down on his wife. No, I wanted it to be that he's like, oh, me, Bill W. You think Bill W. E pussy motherfucker. Please. No, he took acid.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, No, I knew that.

[Pete Holmes]

You knew about this. He took acid and mushrooms. He took acid and what was the 60s? Yeah, he took LSD.

[Moshe Kasher]

You know that like Cracker Jack in the 60s, it would have the prize. The paper that was wrapped in was actually acid.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, what does that mean?

[Moshe Kasher]

That's how prevalent acid was.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I get it.

[Moshe Kasher]

Welcome back to Going Going Gandhi, our.

[Pete Holmes]

Guest today on so at first it was a drive time Going, Going Gandhi, and now it's npr, so.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So I'll be. Drive time. Well, hey, everybody, and welcome back to Go and Go and Gandhi, where some of your favorite heroes of the civil rights movement are proven to be pieces of shit. And then npr.

[Moshe Kasher]

Welcome back to Going Going Gandhi, our show today in three acts. Act one, Bill Huxtable. Wait, Cliff Huxtable?

[Pete Holmes]

Bill Huxtable Bill Cosby, Act 2.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I know what you're doing.

[Pete Holmes]

Claire William Allen, Act 3.

[Moshe Kasher]

Act 3. Martin Luther King of philandering.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's more like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that one. Like Martin Luther King.

[Moshe Kasher]

Every show, every act slightly about kings philandering.

[Pete Holmes]

Stay with us.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's a great show. Stay with us. That's a good show. Why is that considered a podcast? I don't think that's fair.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, oh, it isn't fair.

[Moshe Kasher]

NPR's a show.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's like a real show. They put it out on a podcast with a million dollar an episode budget or more.

[Moshe Kasher]

This is a podcast. I'm not saying I'm. They're better. That's a better show.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm with you.

[Moshe Kasher]

And we are a podcast, and they are a show. It happens to be over the radio waves.

[Pete Holmes]

So. Okay, where were we? Wait, no, that's.

[Moshe Kasher]

You were talking about. The shocking thing about Bill W. Was that he took acid.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh. Not only was he really into acid, he was into niacin. Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

I told you both of these things.

[Pete Holmes]

You did not tell me this. For real, for real, for real, for real. I knew this stuff before I even had medicine.

[Moshe Kasher]

Milligrams of niacin a day.

[Pete Holmes]

You're tuned in right now to lying podcast host, today's guest.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, then, Moesh. I'm just surprised because those are two of my fun facts. In fact, we were just at a party. I was talking to one of our friends. He used to be a big booze hound, and I told him to take vitamin B3, which is niacin.

[Pete Holmes]

It's supposed to help.

[Moshe Kasher]

In fact, I've done it. It does help.

[Pete Holmes]

I'll tell you this.

[Moshe Kasher]

You know what's hard? Not wanting to drink. But you don't booze.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I'll tell you this. Speaking of niacin, when I was in rehab, which was. I've been in rehab many times when I was a kid. I went to rehab a bunch.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's when you want to go when you're a kid. Yeah, go when you're a kid.

[Pete Holmes]

I went for the first time when I was. When I was 12. 13. I was 13 years old.

[Moshe Kasher]

Bar mitzvah.

[Pete Holmes]

Bar mitzvah. So I was almost 14 years old when I got sent to rehab for the first time.

[Moshe Kasher]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Is that what you did with all the money you got?

[Pete Holmes]

No. You don't know that story? No. Oh. What I did with all the money I got was. This is a true story. That's crazy. You don't know this? This Is pretty much the crux of my current touring hour is this story. But do you want to hear the story? Of course. Tell the story. I.

[Moshe Kasher]

We're not gonna cover the basics. This is episode two.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, man. I, act two, act two. In which the boy has a bar mitzvah. Martin Luther Queen, open bar mitzvah. I. What was my bar mitzvah?

[Moshe Kasher]

Was gonna laugh for open bar mitzvah. I mean.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, an open bar mitzvah. Because I was an alcoholic. But I wasn't yet. I was at that point. I was still there. Was still. Spoil it. Okay, well, here's the thing. I was act two, act. My bar mitzvah. First of all, you know, my father didn't invite. He refused to invite my mother to my bar mitzvah. And he did this convoluted explanation of how it would have made everybody there uncomfortable because he was religious and she wasn't. But he didn't. He didn't invite my mom. And at the time, I was so filled with weird religious shame that I kind of accepted it. You know, my dad, when my mom.

[Moshe Kasher]

But that's not normal. It's normal to not want a woman.

[Pete Holmes]

To, like, dance with the Torah very much. Not normal.

[Moshe Kasher]

I would say it's more normal to bring the woman.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

And have her watch you sing with your voice all cracking and be all cute.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I should go back. I should take a step back because I think all we covered was sex. Right. On the last episode.

[Moshe Kasher]

It was a big sex one.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. But for those that didn't read my book, my parents are both deaf.

[Moshe Kasher]

Casher in the rye.

[Pete Holmes]

Casher in the rye.

[Moshe Kasher]

Still waiting for a cease and desist from J.D.

[Pete Holmes]

I wish, man. I wish.

[Moshe Kasher]

Big public.

[Pete Holmes]

We're a little past that point, I think, but yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

My parents are both deaf. My parents got sep. They divorced when I was a kid. Very young, nine months old. My mom moved us from Brooklyn to New to. To Oakland, which is where I grew up. And. And I was raised in Oakland. But my dad, as soon as my mom left, he. He sort of plunged into becoming religious. And so when I flew back to my family, going back is very religious. My. My. My father's mother was the first non religious Jew in many, many generations. I mean, these were all Yiddish speaking, straight up, like fievel goes west type of. You know what I mean? Like, like legit. Like, were they Jewish?

[Moshe Kasher]

He had a baggy hat.

[Pete Holmes]

He was Jewish. Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Fiel was.

[Pete Holmes]

Feivel was a Jew. Yeah. And the. The cats were Cossacks. And you Know that they stole that idea that I've heard they stole that idea from Mouse.

[Moshe Kasher]

I was gonna say from Mouse. I read Mouse.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

I knew that was about the Jews.

[Pete Holmes]

And Mouse was coming out and. And then all of a sudden they heard that there was a Disney version. They had pitched something to Disney and all of a sudden they heard there was a Disney version coming out that was a lot less hardcore.

[Moshe Kasher]

Disney would never do anything against the Jews. You take it back.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

When I was in. When I was in Disney World Land.

[Moshe Kasher]

I wanted to make a Vine with Walt Disney about the Jews because he's holding hands with Mickey and he's putting his hand up and I wanted to.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Be like, not a Jew in sight. But I couldn't do it. I was afraid of the Gestapo. What's your say?

[Pete Holmes]

He comes to life.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Get over here, lover. You get out of here, Gorsh.

[Pete Holmes]

Mickey, you need some help taking care of this here Jew lover?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Help me find his teeth in his blood?

[Pete Holmes]

What's the tooth? That's Donald. But yeah, it's funny that Disney wouldn't be in the Jews because they had a very prominent Jewish character, of course. Who? Scrooge McDuck.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, he's a Scott.

[Pete Holmes]

No, but he's a Jewish guy.

[Moshe Kasher]

Scotts are also cheap.

[Pete Holmes]

He would go swimming.

[Moshe Kasher]

I mean in the stereotype.

[Pete Holmes]

He would go swimming in piles of gold.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's Gargamel is the car.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the bar Mitzvah ceremony.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That's why you don't let us see.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's the inter sanctum.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And now to go back for a quiet cup of tea.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll talk to you later, everybody.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Malt door. Oh, go.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, okay.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I think spinning the coin problem.

[Pete Holmes]

I.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Now let's go work in that bank.

[Moshe Kasher]

From Harry Potter.

[Pete Holmes]

Gringott. That was so intense.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was. That was an anti Semitic cartoon.

[Pete Holmes]

That was so crazy.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was so how did that slip by?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, it was crazy bankers with big noses that are short and greedy. It's like, come on, I'll show you to your vault. Right, there's one. Please sign this form in triplicate. You can follow me. Well, you're a comic, eh? What do you. What do you think of any omen? One of my favorites. I did like Seinfeld. If you'll follow me. Do you have the soup in a medium size?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Soup?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I don't quite want a cup. I don't want quite a bowl.

[Pete Holmes]

I shouldn't have to pay for a large soup or if I don't want that much Soup. I shouldn't be forced to get two small soups. What I'd like is a medium soup.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's a simple request.

[Pete Holmes]

The reason that I'm saying that is I was in this kosher restaurant and I saw someone. This old Jewish couple. This old Jewish couple. I remember, by the way, my family's all Jews. My brother's a rabbi, in case you can't tell.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Moshe's Jewish.

[Pete Holmes]

Very Jewish. People sometimes say, like, I talk too much about it. It's like, it's so big a part of my life. My brother's a rabbi. My family's all Hasidic Jews. So I was in this. This kosher restaurant, and this old Jewish couple. This old Jewish couple, they brought him a soup. Like a cup of soup or. No, a bowl of soup. And then they brought somebody else a cup of soup. And the old guy goes, excuse me, you didn't tell me that there was a cup size available. You should have mentioned it before. When I ordered the bowl of soup, I was just like, oh, man. It's like a. It was a roug. Rough day.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Give me a medium soup.

[Pete Holmes]

I want a medium soup. Welcome to Gringotts. Oh, I don't go in for all that magic stuff. Follow me.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, I got bad blood pressure. I don't know if I'm allowed to do it, but I sure am. I'm right there.

[Moshe Kasher]

Having a fun time with stereotypes.

[Pete Holmes]

What was crazy, though, as a Jew, was when we got the call on 911 not to go in.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Like, oh, my God. When you said not to go in, I thought you meant, like, not to get into something deep.

[Pete Holmes]

No, we all.

[Moshe Kasher]

You mean when you got the alert not to go in?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, every Jew got a call that day. And of course, none of us called our friends and family who are not Jewish.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

We're gonna. We couldn't.

[Moshe Kasher]

As is your way.

[Pete Holmes]

We couldn't.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Some of us wanted to.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But we were unable to do it.

[Moshe Kasher]

Why?

[Pete Holmes]

Because it's a part of the agreement. I mean, what are you gonna do at the meeting? At the money meeting?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There are rules that are.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That's you spitting.

[Pete Holmes]

Welcome to the money meeting.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

The most distinguished man comes from beneath the coin.

[Pete Holmes]

I said, welcome to the money meeting. They're falling off of him. Now, look here, I actually have a theory about. About this kind of stuff. Like. Like, I've been criticized at points for, like, you know, digging into these stereotypes and my jokes and stuff.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But I. I think that. That there's power in digging into the stereotypes. Because they are that ridiculous. Of course, there was, in fact, a call. Well, we're.

[Moshe Kasher]

We're making fun of a grotesque stereotype in the Harry Potter movie.

[Pete Holmes]

And I think it's helpful, though, because it shows in full repose how ridiculous and absurd these people really believed that there were no Jews in the towers in New York City on 911 in. The old Jews had been called that morning and not gone in and not called their friends that they'd been working with for decades because people believed that.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And in fact, my. My stepsister's father. Does that make sense?

[Moshe Kasher]

I'm not gonna try to follow that.

[Pete Holmes]

Was killed in 9 11.

[Moshe Kasher]

And he's a Jew.

[Pete Holmes]

Was a Jew. I mean. Well, I know why I'm saying that. Of course there were Jews.

[Moshe Kasher]

Evan Forsh was a. Is a New Yorker cartoonist that I worked with. Jewish. Worked in the Trade Center. And, you know, it's. It's so silly to say that he got the joke, but I saw him have good success with the joke. I guess I missed the call or something like, he. He would make that joke.

[Pete Holmes]

So. Okay, so my family's Jewish. Oh. So. So by the time I went back to see my father, right. I was six years old. And I found. And my father, I. And I think you were 6 when I saw my daddy.

[Moshe Kasher]

Went from less than 19 months to 6.

[Pete Holmes]

I think my dad came to visit us in Oakland when I was like, four.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And then when we were six, he won visitation rights. There was a horrible, bitter custody dispute. So we fly back home.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like medium soup levels of dispute.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, be almost that bad. Almost that bad. That my father, I think in the Gulf that my. That of emptiness that my mother left when she took my brother and I and herself out of his life.

[Moshe Kasher]

He filled with the Torah. He filled with the first four books of Moses.

[Pete Holmes]

But what was interesting was he. My father was a painter. He was a. An abstraction. Abstract Impressionist painter. Deaf Abstract Impressionist painter. He was a real freako artist who was a colorist in the fashion industry. And he was a painter in the Lower east side in New York in the 60s and 70s. And he's deaf. And Marcel Marceau, they say this is family legend. Marcel Marceau saw him doing some performance art, invited him to come on the road with him to be his, like, understudy because he was so physically gifted, because he's a deaf man. He was a funny guy and very charismatic, very beautiful. I always describe my dad as like a king. Whatever. A king had a good king. Not like you know, somebody's Pliny the Short or something. Like. Like one of the good ones, you know, like a Charlemagne. Yeah, yeah, whatever. They had my hat. My father had like a. Like a whisper of it. He had people worshiped.

[Moshe Kasher]

He was regal.

[Pete Holmes]

People just loved to worship him. There are certain people like that.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

And I don't mean people like you, Pete, who people are fans of. That's a different thing. There's a person, certain kind of personality where people want to worship them. They want to worship at their feet.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Just because of their.

[Moshe Kasher]

I don't think I've run into that at all. I don't ever known anybody. I don't mean me.

[Pete Holmes]

My best friend growing up was like that. Like people, obviously. I know he was a. He was a banker at Gringott. So we. So anyway, so he was this weird painter. I mean, he was a real freako. I mean, you know, nudes and just like, like he. If I could show you a picture, I mean, you would see like, oh, this is like a cool beatnik type of dude.

[Moshe Kasher]

Ye.

[Pete Holmes]

When I flew back to New York, I'm six years old.

[Moshe Kasher]

You go alone?

[Pete Holmes]

No. Yeah, no, I took it took a private jet. Well, I took the JIU jet.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, that was free.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course it was. I mean, it wasn't free.

[Moshe Kasher]

I mean, it's hard to know when you can take it because there's so many holidays.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right. We can't go on Shabbat. But I flew back and my father had become incredibly religious. He had. So my grandmother, his mother was like I said, she was from a line of religious Jews going back hundreds of years. And my great grandfather, when he came over, left all of them in Hungary and came over and started making a living to try to bring them over. This is before the Holocaust. The thing, the made up thing that we use to get sympathy from the world. My mother. We're just doing the thing. I'm just leaning into it at this point. I'm sorry, I don't know how to respond. Respond. You shouldn't. No, but my point is, before the Holocaust, my great grandfather came over and while he was away, he was gone too long and my grandmother decided, fuck him, fuck this, I'm done. And she was the first non religious person in the family for fucking generations.

[Moshe Kasher]

What did she go to? Atheist.

[Pete Holmes]

Atheist. She's an American Communist Party member. She was a civil rights activist. She was a.

[Moshe Kasher]

She became a humanist, basically.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. She became a Jewish leftist intellectual. Literally Communist. American Communist. Communist Party member. Married my grandfather who was a Yiddish novelist who would write with Shalm Aleichem. Do you know the famous author Shalm Aleichem? And there's. That's his name. But anyway, he was a famous author. He wrote something called Some Laughter, Some Tears, which, if there's anything that more exactly illustrates the Jewish historical experience, it's the name of that book. Some Laughter, Some Tears. That's what we do.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah. So I kind of want to interject.

[Pete Holmes]

Please.

[Moshe Kasher]

I just want to talk about the role of pain and humor.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Moshe Kasher]

Just. Just for two seconds.

[Pete Holmes]

No one could. No one could be more. I love. This is my topic.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, I thought you were gonna just make fun of me and be like, no one could be more aware of pain and stuff. Like, I haven't had, like, exorbitant amounts of pain in my life. But, like, I'm just talking. I was just talking about at the. At the party we were just at where I was like, you have a bad set that may. You need that bad set. The most mature thing I've done recently as a performer was we were taping shows, and the first shot was great for the TV show. They were great. But I wasn't, like, feeling magic, you know? I mean, good. You know, you go home and you go, good. This is now. Now in comes the. The tide of pain. And it is. It's painful. I know I'm being dramatic, but it's very painful. You're gonna replay it a thou. Every moment, a thousand times. You sleep, but your brain is churning like if it was a laptop.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Moshe Kasher]

And then you wake up and you have something to fight against that pain. That's why the Jewish idea of a sense of humor and some laughter, some tears is perfect. And we're not necessarily just saying the Holocaust. This is. This is a hugely oppressed people throughout just period.

[Pete Holmes]

I think that gallows humor is one of the, like, the most powerful and important things, you know, people that made it through. And the Holocaust, because you know what? I was thinking about the Holocaust, not the. Put a pin in your pin that it's been put in. But I.

[Moshe Kasher]

Please don't forget your story. You're talking about your father.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not going to. But. But the Holocaust says they've made one too many Holocaust movies. It's almost become obscure, cartoonish, right. At this point. But they've almost dug into it too much. Because at this point, like, when I see a poster for a Holocaust movie, my instinct is like, oh, God, they're doing this again. But there is so much. Like, there was Joking in the camps so that people could make it through the most miserable points of existence.

[Moshe Kasher]

Can you imagine? In fact, I just took a moment to imagine any sort of terrible situation like that. Finding someone with humor. I'm not saying there was a happy guy. I'm saying everyone's miserable or, you know, everybody's there. But there was one guy that had how hungry you must be for some sort of.

[Pete Holmes]

I swear to God, I've always fancied. I've always had a fantasy that I would have made it through. I swear to God, I would have made it through the Holocaust because I was funny. That, like, the German, you know, like, Viper, would have been like, come here. I heard you are funny. Please stop performing. And I would have been like, you know, taking my, like, my cap off with, like, a patch on it, put it. Put in my hand and been like, medium soup, please.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And it would have been like, oh, he is good. Come. Come to the Biahal.

[Pete Holmes]

And I would have somehow survived in that way.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I didn't mean that. I just meant, like, with your comrades, with your people, like, adding some. You mean you would go and, like, sell out?

[Pete Holmes]

I just mean, like, you know, there's this trope, and it's true, that people would make. The way that you would make it sometimes is that somebody would identify you, had a skill. If you were a silversmith, then they would bring you in. They'd be like, well, you can Smith the silver.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's in a much less extreme and a fictional circumstance. It's Shawshank Redemption when he finds out he can do his taxes.

[Pete Holmes]

Correct. Exactly. So I've always had this fantasy that I would, like, you know, be performing in front of my buddy.

[Moshe Kasher]

I'm the same way. Mine wasn't the Holocaust. Mine is. I would have survived war because people would have looked out for me because I was. I was the guy. At the end of the day, I'm like. And bullets are flying, like.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And then comes Big Tony, and he's got a fucking guy's leg on his arm, and he's running like. I've never seen him run before.

[Pete Holmes]

Everyone's dying. That's Pete. He's so funny, man. Pete. This technology doesn't exist yet, but in 60 years, if they ever create a way to make a radio show not on the radio, it would be some sort of information superhighway.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I really think you should look into that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I promise I will.

[Pete Holmes]

Go on without me.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But it's so funny because that.

[Moshe Kasher]

That is a real fantasy that I've Never thought about or talked about publicly is the idea that people like it kind of. This is completely different from the Holocaust thing, but it's almost like you make yourself useful to your past. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

That was my fantasy, was. I was like, if I'm funny, and then the extent of that fantasy is I'm wounded and they'll go back for me because I told those funny jokes.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I think about it, like, in terms of prison, like, how would I make it through prison? I've always had that thought, how would I make it through prison? And I think the way that you and I would make it through prison is through talent. There has to be. They would want us around.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I hope through talent or. Or through, like, really, like the butthole, like a tight. You know what I mean? But I think we'd make it. You're white, so you. You could join the white people. This is my great fan.

[Moshe Kasher]

Can I actually say it's funny that you say that? That is one of my biggest fears is the prison. First of all, prison is so fucked. I'm not just saying that to be like, oh, Pete's a good guy. He sees that prison is a bad place. I just think the American prison system is so weird.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, it's slavery. The prison system is slavery. Straight up.

[Moshe Kasher]

What do you mean?

[Pete Holmes]

The prison system is, you know. Okay. This is. We're really tangential. Is that okay here? Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Do you want me to write anything down?

[Pete Holmes]

It doesn't matter to me. For your purposes, I'm happy to add. I'm happy to come back. The point is it, you know how, like, these white racists in. In.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, that was my fear.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Is that I would have to go to the white racists.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you would.

[Moshe Kasher]

That I would be so afraid for my life that all of a sudden I'm getting a tattoo. The. What is it, 44 or 88.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, 88.

[Moshe Kasher]

Heil Hitler.

[Pete Holmes]

Say that again.

[Moshe Kasher]

The 88. If you see a white supremacist or if you see someone with 88 on their arm. Where did I get this?

[Pete Holmes]

No, no. What did you just say, though? What?

[Moshe Kasher]

I said that the HH stands for what? How.

[Pete Holmes]

Hal Hitler. Hi, Hal Hitler here. And thank you for tuning in to Go and Go and Gandhi.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm your host.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm your host, Hal Hitler. Do you need a place to put your money away, but are tired of going to that pit of Jewish vipers over at Gringotts? Well, come on down to Hal Hitler's credit union. Hal Hitler's where we'll never treat you like a Nazi, unless of course, you're a Jew. No, no.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Okay, so please. Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Europe, slavery. I'm interested.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, okay. Like, okay. You know, this, like this, this, this sentiment is like when people go like, okay, yeah, man, to black America. Get, get over it. That was then, this is now. Get over it. You know, that kind of sentiment. I was thinking about this the other day. So there was slavery, right. We had slavery then. Then after slavery, there was like a four year reconstruction period where things looked weirdly good, but then it just plunged right back into segregation. Right. So you had slavery, then buttressed right up against it was segregation, which ended in what? I don't know, 60, 65? 60? I don't know exactly. But let's say then you had the 70s, then in the 80s you had the war on drugs, which is where they just reconstituted the messaging so that they could find another way of to make black Americans be enslaved and oppressed and separate from society. So when you say get over it, you're really just like talking about the 70s or like a year or not at all. And you know what? People were trying to have a good time in the 70s. You know, they were like, that was time for to wear bell bottoms and celebrate.

[Moshe Kasher]

You're saying the 70s was the only time when we didn't have a repackaged slavery thing?

[Pete Holmes]

My thing is really, I'm trying, trying to be a little bit funny about it. But in fact, when you think about it like that, that it went slavery, segregation, war on drugs, there's never been a time to get over it.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

So you know that more than 70. I think it's something like 70%.

[Moshe Kasher]

They were in prisons in the 70s and there was a.

[Pete Holmes]

But they didn't have the war on drugs. And the war on drugs is when they reconstituted the law so that we could begin to lock away every single person that violated a drug. It's basically just a gussied up way to lock black men away.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Do you know 70% of black males will be in jail at some point in their life?

[Moshe Kasher]

70%.

[Pete Holmes]

Look it up, Aristotle. Let's see if I'm right.

[Moshe Kasher]

I know, I just sounded like an infomercial. 70%.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right, Pete, 70%. So how do the question becomes how do you stay out of prison? But no, no, I don't know.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was racist. Stephen Hawking.

[Pete Holmes]

Stephen Hawking made a reappearance. I don't know why we're talking about this. It's Too intense. But it's. I really believe that.

[Moshe Kasher]

No, it's good to talk about.

[Pete Holmes]

The criminal justice system is a form of new slavery dressed to look like justice so that everybody can celebrate and bang the pots, you know, as we lock away an entire generation of people.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right. And I'm also familiar with the. This is a common saying I believe is like, you gotta put someone in the prisons. Like, they keep building the prisons.

[Pete Holmes]

They keep building the prisons because they've changed the laws to lock people away for forever.

[Moshe Kasher]

And you're gonna put people in those prisons and find ways to put people in those prisons.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. I mean, it's. You know, we're. Anyway, so my dad moved to.

[Moshe Kasher]

So then you're saying once they're in there, when people say slavery, typically you think that they're being used for work or something and that you were gonna take it there.

[Pete Holmes]

Even when they're not being used for work. And in some prisons, they are. I just saw this documentary about Angola. It's called Life on the Farm. And Angola is the largest prison in Louisiana. It's like a fucking city. And they take them out into the field in Louisiana. And the prison guards are on horseback with weapons as these prisoners sit and till the fields in the South.

[Moshe Kasher]

That doesn't remind me of anything.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I mean, it's fucking crazy. Whoa.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's a documentary.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. So when, like, people are constantly being locked up who did nothing wrong. Constantly. Who didn't even violate drug laws, they just violated the racial profiling that looks at certain people and says they must be involved in drugs in some way. So, anyway, I don't. I mean, this is. I don't even know if it's compelling, but I definitely believe.

[Moshe Kasher]

No, it is compelling. I'm compelled. Don't.

[Pete Holmes]

Here's why I think that. Don't. Don't do this. How Hitler.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

We had some huge laughs up top.

[Pete Holmes]

I know. And now we're dealing.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, no, no. You've earned it.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, good.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's very interesting. I just don't. Here's what I was gonna say is I. There. There is a part of the human brain, psychologically, that can't handle when we're looking at injustice on such a huge scale. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

There's lots of things in this way we just can't handle them. It's kind of like childbirth. We've talked about this on the show before. Whereas childbirth is so traumatic and painful. One of the woman. The job of the woman brain. Female brain.

[Pete Holmes]

The woman brain. No, it's Called woman brain.

[Moshe Kasher]

The woman brain. You know, the smaller woman brain.

[Pete Holmes]

Going, going, gone is back.

[Moshe Kasher]

The wonderful, glorious snow.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I have to, like, make it clear.

[Moshe Kasher]

That I was joking. The female brain has a thing in it that's unique, I believe, to the female brain that erases the trauma of childbirth.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that true? Oh, the physical trauma of childbirth, yes. Oh, that's interesting.

[Moshe Kasher]

Will help you forget it.

[Pete Holmes]

I can believe that.

[Moshe Kasher]

But then, like, similarly, when we get into big conspiracies and stuff, actually, there was. They did this 9, 11 conspiracy on PBS. And the thing that made it interesting was one, that it was on PBS, but two, that the third act, act three, was about why people won't accept it.

[Pete Holmes]

Why people won't accept it.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It.

[Moshe Kasher]

Why you won't sign seal delivered. That's not mine.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was a Stevie Wonder reference.

[Pete Holmes]

I like that.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, that was not bad.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Sign Sealed Delivered.

[Pete Holmes]

That's not mine. Won't accept the trauma of childbirth.

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, but it also won't accept the enormity. Something. What you're saying when you say 70% of black men will be in prison, I go, what do we do? And then I can feel my brain, not necessarily right now, but go, like, let's just shovel some snow on that. Well, similarly, you can say the same thing about factory farming. You can say the same thing about a lot of huge issues. Certainly human beings come first, and that is way different from factory farming. I'm just saying there's a lot of things we're turning a blind eye to. I understand your brain is built to shovel Snow.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I. 100. You know, the. That's not mine. Ram Dass was talking about this thing where if you were to walk through the world and experience everybody's trauma, everybody's pain and misery and confusion of every individual. You're my friend, Pete, so I know some of your pain and you know a little bit of mine. If you were to walk around experiencing everybody's trauma and the way that you experience that with your inner circle, it would break you. It would overwhelm and destroy you. And so people's response is to shut off to everybody. But the people in their small circle, their friends, their family, the people that are surrounding them, those are the people we can have an open heart to and everybody around us. But almost by nature of the terror that we experience, of what it would be like to engage with those people, we shut them out. They become less than human.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And the Buddha. I'm not a Buddhist, but this is. Ram Dass is the Buddha. The Buddha who Also was a huge pervert. We'll be right back on Go and Go and Gandhi. No, but the Buddha, you know, he's got that smile on his face, that Asian Buddha. The fat one.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, I love the fat Buddha.

[Pete Holmes]

So that smile, they call it the smile of infinite compassion. So it's a smile that. Because the Buddha, you know, the paradigmatic uber man. Ubermensch to, you know, he'll give you a ride anywhere. He will open his heart to your pain.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He will walk through the world with a. With a conscious decision to open himself to your pain, to everybody's pain.

[Moshe Kasher]

Can I give you something? Give it two things. I'm gonna actually write it down because I've been kind of spacey lately. I love what you just said. It's fantastic. And it's something that I think about a lot. One is that the human condition, the mammal in all of us that wants what's best for us now and what's good for our clan and our. And to be inward and to understand that reason, like, we got to put us first. We got to put us first. That's like in our. That's in our DNA, basically. That's like how we've survived all this time. When you get people like the Buddha and people like Christ. Jesus Christ.

[Pete Holmes]

Jesus. You walk through this world with the Christ Jesus on your mind. With the smile of infinite compassion upon your face. You can empty your own vessel and intake other people's pain. And it will be transmogrified into the blood of Christ in that healing water.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Wait.

[Moshe Kasher]

When we take in the pain of our neighbor. I don't know what I just said.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It'll turn into the blood of Christ.

[Pete Holmes]

While I was doing it, I was freaking out that I was gonna drop the ball in the middle of the pit. And then I was getting impressed that I wasn't dropping it. But then that would distract me, which is very Buddhist, because when you're meditating and you get distracted by the things that your. Impressive. Anyway, I dropped it.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No, I loved it. Buddha, Siddhan, welcome back.

[Pete Holmes]

We bank on Go and Go and.

[Moshe Kasher]

Gandhi to Sidharta and Nancy.

[Pete Holmes]

So Christ, you were saying Christ was.

[Moshe Kasher]

The guy that came and said, like, let's look at the big picture.

[Pete Holmes]

Let's look.

[Moshe Kasher]

Love your neighbor, love your enemy, all that sort of stuff.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

Was outward. It doesn't really make sense. It doesn't have a good instant return that protects us and clothes us and sheltered us. To love your neighbor when. When the Romans are like. When there's a. There's a verse of parable Christ tells where he's like, if a Roman comes up to you and wants your walking stick, give him your cloak as well.

[Pete Holmes]

Well.

[Moshe Kasher]

And these were Romans that were just like murdering these people, like straight up. So it's like completely against our programming. Deny our programming. True detective. Yeah, the other one, talking about seeing transgressions and Buddha seeing people and seeing their pain and letting in their pain. Here's. I don't think you thought I was going to go here. I think Sherlock is the BBC Sherlock.

[Pete Holmes]

Sure.

[Moshe Kasher]

Benny Cumberbatch is a Christ figure. I. I think it's pretty obvious in the way that he, you know, dies and, you know, there's another season after that. I'm not spoiling anything. So obviously he comes back, but beyond that, he sees your transgressions. When I look at you and I go, well, obviously, by the way, that you scratch your nose, right? Then you're obviously a compulsive masturbator. But he's a sociopath, so he doesn't judge them. So that's like a type of grace. I see your pain. I see. And then there's the law. And this is something Rob Bell said. We were talking about this, the law. The Scotland Yard are trying to catch the criminal.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a Sanhedrin, and he's Jesus.

[Moshe Kasher]

And he's like, ugh. He's working with them, but he's so ahead of them.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, okay, I have a couple of things to say.

[Moshe Kasher]

But he lets in humanity, right? That's what no one does.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, no, I mean, that's really interesting. My brother right now, the rabbi, is also a PhD student at UC Berkeley Law, so he's getting a doctorate in law and his basic research, what he's writing his thesis on, is the difference between religion, religious and secular law. Now, say what you will about the failings and trappings of religion, what religious law is obsessed with is justice. It's obsessed with being right, righteousness. Even when that righteousness is off kilter, you know, abortion, homosexuality, it's still. They're obsessed with what's the right thing.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's going for something good.

[Pete Holmes]

The Western, Western law is obsessed. Its main obsession is with victory. It's not justice. We're not really after search for the truth, but in fact after search for winning the cat.

[Moshe Kasher]

Cui bono, who benefits? Who he gives a shit.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, that it's true. You know, like, the law doesn't work in an obsessive quest for justice and righteousness. The law work because we all know there are laws that don't have anything to do with righteousness. You know what I mean? They just have to do with victory.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

The other thing I was going to say is there's this very chilling passage from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which is part. It's a book. Do you know that book?

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh Man's Search for Meaning. The Holocaust Survive.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a holocaust. But half of it is a Holocaust memoir. Half of it is a psychological textbook or whatever. And in. In what you were just talking about that Christ, like, kind of like open yourself to everybody's pain, accept people for what they are, love people and thrive in that way. Which is also a very aa kind of, you know, mentality. Yeah. Structure or whatever. It's like, help yourself through helping others.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Others.

[Pete Holmes]

Frankl, in that book, says the scary thing that all of us who made it through the camps know is that the best of us perished in the camps. The best people that entered, the compassionate, loving people that entered, that tried to help people, they were all killed because they tried to help people. It was the selfish, greedy people that were willing to kick their comrades into the dirt to get that next heel of bread were the ones that were able to survive an environment like the camp.

[Moshe Kasher]

And you know what's funny is that just seems like an analogy for all of us. You know what I mean? I don't think I'm really being that breakthrough in saying that. It's like that's who's thriving a lot of the time. But also there are. There is compassion as well. That. That is a terrifying.

[Pete Holmes]

It's. It's terrible.

[Moshe Kasher]

Thought the best of us died in the campus.

[Pete Holmes]

It's terrible.

[Moshe Kasher]

Sad.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, it's a terrible passage.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But anyway, my dad.

[Moshe Kasher]

Really interesting, though, I. I was gonna say that, like, romantic love is often the only way that we have. That's our great experiment in being like, I'm going to let you in. And that's why it hurts us so badly when it doesn't work and when we let people in and all that sort of stuff. But like, that is, you know, like, this is gonna sound kind of sappy, but like, sometimes when I'm kissing somebody, this is so fucking weird. But who cares? What I'll think is not like, ooh, tits and vagina. That doesn't turn me on as much.

[Pete Holmes]

As, ooh, pecks and dick is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm sorry, I'm opening up. That was so good.

[Pete Holmes]

I had to.

[Moshe Kasher]

But it. I mean, it's not Actually gender specific. It's just that, like, this person is here and they're alive at the same time. And then like, you. Actually it's. It can be meditative. And this isn't always. I've kissed somebody and just been like, oh, yeah, this is how we do it. You know, just coming or just trying to, like, have some sex or whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

Have you ever had that kiss? This is a bad. There's a. There's a worse kiss than the one you're describing. Way worse.

[Moshe Kasher]

What's that?

[Pete Holmes]

It's the flail my tongue around until we can start having sex.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Time waster kiss. It's like.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's a non kiss.

[Pete Holmes]

How long do I have to do this? Until the weekend. I mean, that's a bad feeling. So transaction. You're just like, yeah, yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

He's like, are we getting this over with?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but there's mashing tongues together.

[Moshe Kasher]

Something I've noticed. I've been talking with my friend David about this, which is like when he. He does free diving, right? Where he realizes that when you're going down, and that's just with a snorkel, that's as opposed to scuba diving. You just go down and you start to panic. You think you're out of water. And he realized that if you just calm down and deny your instinct to go back up, you'll realize you have like, another lung. Is basically what he called it. He's like, you have another lung. So there's this deliberate sort of. Sort of quieting in that moment. And I've been noticing that with energy. Like, I go out to meals and I'm so tired and I'm so, like, distracted and stuff. And then you can go like, I think I'm just tired and distracted because I'm not calming myself down a little bit. Like, calm down. It's in you. You have another lung. Relax. Sometimes you're tired. But I mean, like, a lot of the times I'm tired because I'm like, I have radio in the morning. So, like, I'll start panicking and then you lose that extra lung of air. Going back to the kissing thing. Thing is, you kiss and you go like, this is a thing. Like, I'm not. People who listen to the show know I am no expert. And it's okay. You can vapor smoke into the mic.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't ruin the illusion.

[Moshe Kasher]

You can smoke that hookah with the caterpillar into the mic. But. Oh, what was I saying?

[Pete Holmes]

When you're kissing someone and you have that other lung. But.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, but it was something else. Dick on a bread. You know, just dick on bread. You know what I mean? Just dick on bread.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know what you mean.

[Moshe Kasher]

Just like a bear's dick.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, on bread. I think we were talking about connection. Yeah. Going.

[Moshe Kasher]

There can be a moment where you go, oh, quantum physics. That's what I was saying was like, when Stephen Hawking actually goes back to him, this is going to be. And butchered and terrible.

[Pete Holmes]

Come on.

[Moshe Kasher]

But he's saying, when we're not in a room. When we're in a room that's not being observed, every possible reality is happening in that room because it's not being observed. And then as soon as you're, like, looking at it again, it resumes, like, its natural order and whatnot. And then, like, again, butchered. But, like, every time a decision is made, there's all these parallel universes. The multiverse theory.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

So there's a universe, I went surfing today where I was eaten by a shark. But there's also a universe where an eagle, when we were walking out from the parking lot, flew down and took out both of my eyeballs. Like, absurd things also could happen in these multiverses. But then just to make it a little bit more normal, that means there's a multiverse where, like, I died, or there's a multiverse where the person I'm kissing didn't live. We are here together in this multiverse. If this is true, what a unique, unbelievable matching of patterns and circumstances that we've skied down a mountain and we're here together.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. There's a multiverse where you just didn't meet that night.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's what I'm saying.

[Pete Holmes]

Something so just a hair off. And I didn't.

[Moshe Kasher]

But we're in this one, right? What the fuck? That's what you know. Dicks, pecks. And that gets me really going.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a powerful idea because. And this, I think, can lead us.

[Moshe Kasher]

Back to dicks and dicks and pecs.

[Pete Holmes]

This can lead us back to our original episode, which is. Since our episode, I've been in a relationship now. A monogamous relationship.

[Moshe Kasher]

Monog. First time in your life?

[Pete Holmes]

First time in my life. For.

[Moshe Kasher]

In your life?

[Pete Holmes]

Life for a year and a half. More than a year and a half. Wow. And do you say who it's with? Yeah. Natasha Leggero.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You do it.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's like I have these experiences where there were. There were sensations that I knew intellectually were involved in an intimacy. Like if you had told me. Oh, well, Intimacy is about, like, partnership or. But they never could sink from my brain into my heart. You know, there's a saying, like, the furthest distance in the Universe is the 12 inches from your brain to your heart. You know what I mean?

[Moshe Kasher]

I've never heard that. But that's great. That's great.

[Pete Holmes]

And it's like, I would go like, oh, this is one of those things, you know, I'm connecting to the person that I am engaged in sex, love with, you know, as opposed to the mashing tongues together. Transactional.

[Moshe Kasher]

Just.

[Pete Holmes]

Or even I find you pleasant. But, you know, most of the time it was that it wasn't always just like, horrible, you know, meaningless connections.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

But sometimes it was just like, this is a cool person who I fuck.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And then it becomes this other thing. This, like, okay, this is what they meant. Oh, okay. I had a bad day. And I can say I had a bad day, right? I'm not a big. Even to this day. And I don't think Natasha would be too forlorn to hear this. I'm not a romantic. And I'm not. I don't really see it in the cards for me to be, like, a romantic. Like, I don't think, like, you know, there's magic to love other than the magic you're talking about, which is like, that you happen to find this. This person who you can be around, you know, but to experience those things is like a. It's not that it feels, like magical and mystical. It's that it feels like different. Like, I. Like, it was not promised to me. And that's really what I started to feel like at the end of our. Or at the end of my life end. But at the end of that cycle of my life as a chronically single person fuck guy was like, if I don't find a way to get off of this cycle, I won't ever experience the other thing because it's becoming so ingrained and habitual behaviorally. If I don't find it, it's not gonna happen.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's interesting. That's a real risk that we run in all sorts of different ways, not just sexually, because I noticed. Notice that, you know, I'll be hanging out with a girl that I see, and if I have been too autonomous, just like, no, I go home. Like, here's the thing. So I. I see a girl long distance. So it. That's what's happening. I don't know how to classify that. Yeah, that's how you classify it. It's a long distance Thing. But she. She was just visiting, and then, like, she came to a taping. And then when I'm leaving, I normally listen to the national. I just love the national. It's very chill. And that's a good thing to listen to. And she wanted to listen to this other thing. Some of her friends were there, too. Completely reasonable that you don't want to listen to the national with your other two girlfriends.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

But, like. And it didn't bother me. But it's this weird moment where you're like, right, hey, wait.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Hey, wait. I had it.

[Pete Holmes]

I listen to the national. That's what I do. Beyond that, Pete, when you had told me, if you told me me, if I had described that sensation to you before, I was in a relationship.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's not just that I would gone, like, I don't want to be a guy that has to, like, ask permission to listen to the national. I would be physically. I would get the physical chills thinking about the idea of, like, calling my girl a world where I call my girlfriend and say, hey, me and Pete are gonna go get dinner tonight. Okay.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, ugh, pathetic disgust. It would, like, literally send chills down my spine. And a lot of it is because my mother. My mom was this person that I describe in the book as she lived on top of my chest my entire childhood. She literally was like, if she could have been inside of my body, like, manipulating it for me, she would have. That's how, you know, smothering she was. So the idea of, like, having another one.

[Moshe Kasher]

Another one. And electing. You inherited that first one.

[Pete Holmes]

Exactly.

[Moshe Kasher]

And then electing to build another prison.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Not only did I inherit her, I also got rid of it.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, you broke out. I was also able to escape from the prison.

[Moshe Kasher]

And then you go into another prison. Not all relationships are prison, you know, I just said. But, like, you're. You were afraid of checking in and being like, hello, you have three square meals a day in a warm bed. Like, that's good enough for me.

[Pete Holmes]

No, absolutely. It's like you jump over the citadel, the wall, the truncheon wall of the prison that you were born into. And you run, Run across the field, stop, catch your breath, dig into the river, make a clay brick, and start laying them down for the truncheon walls to the one that you're building for yourself. I mean, that's.

[Moshe Kasher]

But that is. That is a hundred percent what I want to be talking about this show every day. I think about that all the time.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

And I Look, you know, to be honest, like, I. In the freedom of being single, you get to look around a lot and go, like. Like, what is happening? You know, I say it sometimes is the in flight menu. What are the things that are just kind of expected of you? But then if you can go into something loving because with your eyes open, as opposed to making that brick out of fear or familiarity or some sort of Stockholm syndrome where you're like, I. I like it better on the inside. Deal with it on the outside a little bit, get your ass kicked a little bit, and then. And then choose to go in. And when I say with your eyes open, open. I really believe in complete and open honesty with people, as I know that if you're gonna date, and this is a new thing for me, but, like, here's everything. I'm not gonna.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Moshe Kasher]

Here's one is I'm not gonna pretend that I'm not attracted to that beautiful woman or something. It doesn't mean I'm gonna have sex with her or anything, but I really value that in a relationship where you can just be like, that's obviously an attractive person. That's what I think. I mentioned this a lot, but those vacation movies where Chevy Chase is always like, I'm gonna go for a swim, and there's like, a hot bikini person and he's like.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Why?

[Moshe Kasher]

Why is that one of the prison rules? I'm not saying you fuck them. I know. I do that a lot where I'm.

[Pete Holmes]

Why not?

[Moshe Kasher]

I know.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's really the question, right?

[Moshe Kasher]

It's like, well, then now we're getting into the 60s hippie, and we're gonna be asked to apprentice with your dad. But I'm with you.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm just saying, like, if it's true. And look, your tongue is falling out of, like, the wolf's mouth.

[Moshe Kasher]

He's in a pretend thing.

[Pete Holmes]

Thing. What's that? Chevy.

[Moshe Kasher]

Chevy in that situation is in a pretend thing.

[Pete Holmes]

He's not. Are you mean. He's just thinking about her, but we made up.

[Moshe Kasher]

And that, I would wager, is almost worse to have him just kind of being like, not worse, but you know what I mean? A similar type of. Grows bad for him to be like. And then, like, in bed with his wife later. Just like, I'm not saying you should fuck that person, but I am saying it's interesting that we make this. Make these rules and then kill ourselves over them.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it is. And it's also. It's also like. I mean, I guess the idea is not to build the brick at all. To say that there's freedom in my connection with this human being. I found freedom, I found partnership, I found intimacy. Of all that stuff. That's actually freedom. And as opposed to thinking of love as taking on a series of, you know, a yoke of strictures.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's more like taking on a partner to walk with.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's a partner to walk with. As opposed to, remember, motion, no hoagies.

[Pete Holmes]

Exactly.

[Moshe Kasher]

You know what I mean? That said, which I'm not saying that's all women. I'm saying some men make a woman be that way to them and some men.

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely.

[Moshe Kasher]

Some women make a man be that way to them.

[Pete Holmes]

And every person either feels that way on some level about love. It's like, oh God, you know, they own a part of my. That's what I was terrified of is that another person would own a part of me.

[Moshe Kasher]

They.

[Pete Holmes]

That I would owe them a part of my energetic self.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And my mother owned all of that when I was growing up. So if another person owns that for me, I owe them something.

[Moshe Kasher]

A co signer.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I. That just fucking terrified me.

[Moshe Kasher]

It still makes me. I completely relate. I. It makes me nauseous and I think it might be because of my relationship with my mother as well. Whereas I, I was like, why would I. I fantasize about that whole thing. It's like, can't. Like the idea is like, let's be committed. Let's just be committed to each other. Like all that sort of extra stuff on the other side of it just seems.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And that said, there's not a day that goes by that I don't say to myself, I don't know if I'm. I don't know if this is.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, the world that. I mean, you know, maybe I was meant to be single. Yeah. And I love being in this relationship, but it's also like it's a whole other thing. And I don't, I don't have a Pollyanna view on love at all. I don't feel like love has fulfilled me or has fundamentally made me a different person. I think maybe I've had a fuller experience, but as a. Of myself, as a person. But that's mainly because my experience on the other side was so one sided. I was such a single guy. I was not just at the very end. Sex was almost. A lot of the time became almost transactional. You know what I mean? Like, it would be, it would be like, like I would go out, go to a show and at the end of the night, like, hook up with someone. I mean, it was. It just felt very non connective. So obviously, being in a loving situation is much more connected.

[Moshe Kasher]

But it's also great that you can be in that loving situation and say without any sort of concern or fear. It'd be like. And every day. And I know that you communicate about that because you are the fuck guy. You know what I mean? You're the domesticated wolf. But it's very nice. Not wolf. You know what I mean? But it's nice. That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's nice for the wolf occasionally to be like, you know, I used to.

[Pete Holmes]

Be a wolf, you know.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Back before I was a dachshund. Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

I really. I. Every once in a while, you know, I love it here, but I do.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I do. I. I do miss yelling at the moon.

[Pete Holmes]

The wolf looks up. Lassie, I just. Can I. Have I ever told you about my life as a wolf? Every day, wolfie. Well, just. If I could, I would pray. You know what pray is, is.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, man. There was some good prey that night.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my mama mia. I used to eviscerate the rabbits, if you know what I mean.

[Moshe Kasher]

There was a great New Yorker cartoon by Bruce Harry Kaplan where there's a lion and a woman. I. I used to rip his style off a lot. Like, I just thought it was so funny. And I love arguments between two things. Like, I drew one where it was a woman in a pirate, and he has a treasure map, and she's pointing to her heart and she's saying, I'm more interested in what's buried in here. Like, I like that sort of stuff. Like, why is she with a pirate? All that sort of stuff. So he had one where he was. It's a woman with a lion, and it's like a real big lion. It's lying on the floor. It's not like in a suit. It's a lion. And she's saying, like, something to the effect of, like, do you know how that makes me feel when you say your years in the jungle were the.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Best of your life?

[Pete Holmes]

That's. That's literally what we're doing.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm going to get that cartoon for you. But what are you going to do?

[Pete Holmes]

I'm going to order a medium soup.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, God.

[Moshe Kasher]

You.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No, no. I love the bed. I love the bed.

[Pete Holmes]

The bread's good. The olives in it.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's got the olives in there. And. And then we cuddle.

[Moshe Kasher]

And there's a fire with. Oh, God, I look at that.

[Pete Holmes]

Gazelle. You tasted gazelle?

[Moshe Kasher]

They'd look at you, but they wouldn't really be looking at you.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You know what I mean?

[Moshe Kasher]

They heard a snap.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Cause I always.

[Pete Holmes]

The way the neck. I still can remember the way the fold in the neck as they would turn the neck suddenly, as if to say, you want a bite of this?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Sometimes I'd snap a twig just to.

[Pete Holmes]

Get the turn, just to see that neck turn.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I could have done it without the turn, but I like the game.

[Pete Holmes]

But, honey, I love you. I love the way you turn, but I love you.

[Moshe Kasher]

This is better, you know? And you know what I think what we're saying is there are things that are better, but it's also okay to be like.

[Pete Holmes]

Like. Absolutely.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I love that moon.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that moon. But I. But I don't go to the moon anymore. Well, stay on Earth.

[Moshe Kasher]

Since we've had our talk, I had my. My time, you know, whoring it up.

[Pete Holmes]

It's almost like I gave that to you. You did give it to me. I feel like on some psychic level I gave it to you.

[Moshe Kasher]

But we had a weird thing where we go to meals now, and this was a while ago, but we would go to meals and I would tell you like. Like a sex story, and then you would tell me a story about some sort of casserole.

[Pete Holmes]

About some sort of what?

[Moshe Kasher]

It's casserole.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I was joking.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, Natasha makes the best tuna casserole. That's a wonderful group sex story, Pete, but with a little bit of cream of mushroom soup and the. Ooh, it's the French onions that tie the whole thing together.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I miss that moon, Pete. I miss the moon, Pete. But it was a roll.

[Moshe Kasher]

It was a weird roll verse. Now, I never went really hard at it, but I was proud to, like, kind of try and, you know, do that a little bit more, have sex with people that I wasn't in a relationship with. That was a really big deal for me. But then, you know, I've also come around. Like, I think that's what people do in a sense that you start to realize that, like, there is a reason why people get married five times. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

There's also a reason why people get divorced, you know what I mean? Or break up with people. But there's also a reason we're drawn to it for one reason or another. It's like one of our favorite things to do.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

As a group is to. To connect to each other, connect to one person. And that goes back to Buddha Smile. It's like, tell me all your. I'll tell you all my. And you will see it and love me and I'll see yours and you'll love me. And then the tuna casserole.

[Pete Holmes]

And then we'll have casserole forever. And you know what we'll do? We'll take out that casserole once a month, we'll form it into a little circle, we'll put it on the wall, and it'll be our moon. Oh, my God, it'll be our moon. This is NPR's going, going Gandhi.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Really good, really special.

[Moshe Kasher]

Here's a couple things that. Well, let's finish the dad story.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I, I don't quite know what I was. I knew, oh, Jewish bar mitzvah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Dad six years old, so he became religious.

[Pete Holmes]

So when my mom left, left, he put away his paints.

[Moshe Kasher]

Has anyone ever taken the, the black magazine, Jet magazine and made Jew?

[Pete Holmes]

I don't think so, but Jews, since we were on the media, probably could. I used to say that. I used to say that in black clubs. I used to say, of course, Jews, you know, run the media. My first two magazines were Jet and Ebony.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, that's great. So you visit your dad. You're six years old.

[Pete Holmes]

And I would go back home and I found that my dad in my absence, had joined up, up with a group of Hasidic Jews.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

Known as the Satmar Hasidim. Who are the Modest Yahoos? No, they're like, they make Modest Yahoo look like, like, like Trotsky. What I'm saying is compared to.

[Moshe Kasher]

They're into it.

[Pete Holmes]

They're way into.

[Moshe Kasher]

They don't take, they don't take freestyle breaks.

[Pete Holmes]

They're the most extreme group of Hasidic Jews. Now, my dad wasn't really. Actually, he was. This is a very interesting story. It's not my story. It's my brother's. So we were raised in this Hasidic world six weeks a year. So most of the year would be secular kids in California and summer vacation. We would fly back home and become Hasidic Jews for six weeks a year. And it was like, terrible. And the kids in my neighborhood spoke Yiddish as a first language. Yiddish. I have family that is third generation American who speak with Eastern European accents. When they speak English, I, I swear to God.

[Moshe Kasher]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

My cousin Liebish, Libish Liebish and Shmieloo Shmeeloo. These are my cousins.

[Moshe Kasher]

Is he a little guy? Is that a nickname?

[Pete Holmes]

No, just a Shmiel. Just a small little Shmieloo. Actually this is. I want to tell you a few things about this. Uh huh. Shmiel. One time when my father was dying, we were in the hospital room together and we were talking. We never really talked as adults. Adults. And it was just me and shmeeloo, me and shmieloo. Thursdays with Maury or whatever, and then Wednesdays with Shmiel. And he turned to me and he goes. He goes, you're so lucky. I'm like, why? He's like, you can do it, whatever you want. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, I always wanted to be a lawyer. I was like, be a lawyer. He's like, I could never be a lawyer. Lawyer. His. He was so religious that his family would have been ashamed of him and cut him off if he had become a lawyer.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Jews like being lawyers and Jewish parents typically like it when their kids. This is how religious. This guy. There would never be a.

[Moshe Kasher]

You're in Harvard Law.

[Pete Holmes]

I swear to God.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

How dare you.

[Pete Holmes]

You're gonna be some lawyer in the secular world. Some lawyer, yeah. There's only one thing in that level of Hasidic Judaism that has value, and that's the Torah. Nothing else has value. You work only as a means to make money to enable you to study the Torah more. The only reason.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

So another.

[Moshe Kasher]

When I was a kid, that's what I thought all religious people should be doing, by the way. I was like, if we believe this is true, why aren't we all just like trying to stay alive and read it?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, Hasidic Jews have figured out a way to do that. And in fact, in Israel it's. So it's state sponsored.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

All of the.

[Moshe Kasher]

And you don't have to go to the military. Lot of resentment.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh yeah, they're all on welfare. They're literally all welfare cheats. They're just staying on welfare because in the. In the old days, we're getting off topic a little bit. But in the old days they would identify the scholars in the neighborhood, take them, put them in a seminary and have them read the Torah all day. And the other people, the dumb people would. When the regular people would go get jobs to support this whole system. System. But now that they're state sponsored religious support, the Hasidic Jews are literally the Hasidic communities in Israel. Some of them, not all of them, are manipulating the system so that every single Hasidic person will stay in seminary their entire life. Just sucking on the teat of Israeli welfare. As the secular people go to the military to Fight for them. And they say, hey, if nobody was studying Torah, this country would be collapsed anyway. We're doing well. It's like, okay, good. Good magic. But anyway, so my brother also. He was in seminary himself at one point, and he was. I'll never forget this story. He was reading the Lord of the Rings, and this guy goes to him. What?

[Moshe Kasher]

Isn't Schmeagle a Jew?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, definitely, my precious.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I was trying. Smeagol.

[Pete Holmes]

Smeagol. Smil.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I was trying to say that. And I said, schmegen. I was gonna say he wasn't Shmeeloo. If he's not in it.

[Moshe Kasher]

He's one of the towns.

[Pete Holmes]

So my brother's reading Lord of the Rings, and one of his compatriots comes up to him and goes, why are you reading this? And he's like, what? He's like, what do you read? What is this, fiction? He's like, yeah, I guess it's fun. It's just a book. He goes, never read fiction. Why would I want to read another man's lies? That's how useless everything is. Is if it's not the Torah. Yeah. It's not, like, a lovely work of art. It's another man's lies. Wow. So my brother was. When he was. He was. Before he became religious himself, he was. They went to Israel on this college tour. No, it was like a semester abroad. And they're having, like, a meeting with a Hasidic person. And the Hasidic person is sitting there, and he's going, you know.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, it's sitting there.

[Pete Holmes]

He's sitting there with his hap. And he's saying, oh, you know, Hasidic Jews, we celebrate life, and we love religion and we love God, and it's lovely and wonderful. We dance. And my brother's sitting there, and he's getting more and more angry. Tell me the story. Getting more and more angry. And he finally. He just goes. He just goes. This is. I don't know what he said, but something to the effect of inappropriately made everyone uncomfortable. He's like, this is complete bullshit. This isn't a bunch of dancing and happiness and wonder. It's judgmental. It's fucking stark. It's angry. It's terrible. And the Hasidic guy, to his credit, very calmly, was like. He goes, I grew up like this, you know? I know you're just filling this. This room with bullshit. And the guy goes, well, let me. Let me ask you a question. What. What sect of Judaism, of Hasidic Judaism was your family from My brother's like Satmar and New Square. Why? And he goes, I hate to tell you this, but you just got really, really unlucky with the two groups that your father was affiliated with. With, like, every. Those are the two most intense, the most stark, the most like. He said that this Hasidic Jew basically, was like, if you had grown up in a different sect of Hasidic Judaism, you would have a different. You would have had a different experience. These are the two worst that you could have selected.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, my God.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know about worse. I don't want to say worse, but the least fun for a person.

[Moshe Kasher]

The most stark.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. So that's the world that my. That I was dropped into six weeks a year. Wow. So my bar mitzvah was. It was. This is.

[Moshe Kasher]

How old were you?

[Pete Holmes]

How far into this are we? Because I have a. I have a end to go. No, not at all. But I have an end to this story that I think will end this episode well.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, really?

[Pete Holmes]

So it's my bar mitzvah.

[Moshe Kasher]

I mean, do it to it.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, whatever. We. It doesn't. Whatever.

[Moshe Kasher]

Tell the story.

[Pete Holmes]

My bar mitzvah. My brother's bar mitzvah was even worse than mine.

[Moshe Kasher]

Can I get a laugh for. How old were you?

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't even hear it. That's really good. Yeah, I was 40. No, it's my bar mitzvah and it's Hasidic. It's the world that my dad lives in now. So what happened was my dad, he got divorced, and he was this painter. He put his paints away. Put his paints away forever.

[Moshe Kasher]

No more painting.

[Pete Holmes]

No more painting. He got a job at the post office.

[Moshe Kasher]

Doesn't someone have to paint the maps in the back of the Bible and stuff?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, he. Absolutely. He could have painted. But why would I want to paint another man's lies?

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, his own lies.

[Pete Holmes]

His own lies. Oof.

[Moshe Kasher]

How do they reconcile the fact that this is a big question, but that, like, men, like human men wrote these words?

[Pete Holmes]

They don't believe that.

[Moshe Kasher]

They don't believe that the Bible. That the Torah fell from the sky on a parachute.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, they do.

[Moshe Kasher]

They do.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, what do you mean by that? I mean, what's your question mean?

[Moshe Kasher]

People, you know, it's rumored that Moses wrote Genesis, for example, right? Moses, God, perspective. Oh, that God character. You know what I mean? God changing his mind. It's all throughout the Old Testament.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. I mean, I understand the question that you're asking.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like, people, religious people like me love being like, well, that was added by a scholar later. That's not as historically accurate as this. And you know, people like me who still consider myself spiritual can be like. Or this is perhaps just a huge myth. Where do they get the footing to be like, this is, is Joseph's style. This is carved in gold.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, what's really interesting actually is Christianity is even more interesting. That cognitive dissonance that you're talking about is even more pronounced in Christianity because there's literally no way that it was written by God. I mean, it's not possible. Even according to its own mythology, it's not true. The Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Mark, these are written by Luke and Mark.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And not only that, everybody knows historically there was many more gospels and then they had a. This blew my mind. This blew my mind when I heard about the Council of Nicaea, like when I heard about the.

[Moshe Kasher]

But that happened with the Torah as well. For sure. There were other writings.

[Pete Holmes]

There are, there's no, I don't doubt that. But what I'm saying is it's historically inarguable to say it happened, that happened.

[Moshe Kasher]

It did happen, happen.

[Pete Holmes]

Everybody accepts that it happened, that they had a meeting where they went, this, this, this book, this represents the divine. It's a crazy cognitive dissonance we're looking at.

[Moshe Kasher]

And here's the great thing I'm just agreeing with you is we're saying that was a type of divine inspiration that occurred then and then stopped occurring.

[Pete Holmes]

The ability to select which things were divine.

[Moshe Kasher]

And then the people that. That's what I meant. Yes. And also the people that wrote those things were having divine inspiration when Paul wrote, you know, allegedly, I think it was Paul wrote revelation from prison.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

I think that's Paul. It doesn't matter. You don't have to Google that one comment. It was, you know, I'm just saying, you know, what's, what's really had divine inspiration that we, the Mormon, the Mormon Church says that still occurs. There are active prophets writing now writing things that's.

[Pete Holmes]

But there's a difference between prophecy and canonized Torah, the Bible gospel.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So even, even Paul's letters are different than the gospel, right?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes. Paul's letters are critiques on.

[Pete Holmes]

Even though they are accepted canonically, they're not the same level of divinity as the gospel.

[Moshe Kasher]

Not, no, not to a Bible believing Christian. But like, in fact most of, most of what you would recognize as Christianity is coming from Paul.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I'm familiar with that. But like in Judaism there's this thing called them midrash which are oral. The Oral Torah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So these are commentary on the text.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oral Torah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oral Torah. Yeah. Where you, you know, you just. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, I wasn't making that joke.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, I thought you were.

[Moshe Kasher]

I just. Those words sound the same. Oral Torah. It's like Rur.

[Pete Holmes]

Jeral juror. So there's this saying in. About the Midrash, because the midrash are these commentaries and stories about the stories that were written down.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

There's a story on the Midrash that says only a fool would believe that all of the midrash are true and only a fool would believe that none of them are. So that's weird.

[Moshe Kasher]

So that's right in there.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, that's a saying about it. But it's like, that's weird. Well, what am I supposed to believe? And they would say something like, believe them all, but, you know, but only a fool. It's like, it's very Jewish. You know what I mean? What I enjoy about Believe Them all, but, you know, they're not all true.

[Moshe Kasher]

Judaism being like, let's look at the. This scripture in every possible way. You know what I mean? Having a little bit of a relationship with it. Anyway, you go to your story. I feel like I'm. I've derailed that.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, I think this is also interesting.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, yeah, okay, good. I'm. I'm also interested.

[Pete Holmes]

So how do. How do Jews.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah. Where do they. I'm basically. Where do they get off?

[Pete Holmes]

Where do they get off believing this crap?

[Moshe Kasher]

But it's just interesting to me. You're saying, at least in your experience, it was treated obviously like, no, this is true, and everything else is a lie someone made up.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, there's actually a really beautiful story about the authorship of the. Of the Bible. So the b. The tablets were given by God.

[Moshe Kasher]

Those are the commandments.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, the tablets. The Ten Commandments.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So this is a very strange story. My brother was just talking about this in the Bible. It's a very weird story. The Ten Commandments. Moses goes up, God gives him two tablets. God says, I made these. Check them out. Here you go.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Moses takes the tablets that God gave him, walks back down the mountain. The people are worshiping the golden calf because they got afraid because he was gone for so long. He throws the tablets at the golden calf, calf, Ba boom. And then goes back up the mountain, and God forgives him and says, now you build the tablets. It's like, very strange, right?

[Moshe Kasher]

That is. Yeah, that's.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a very weird narrative. But anyway, well, that's why the tablets.

[Moshe Kasher]

Weren'T in God's handwriting. Honestly, that's kind of what I feel like we're covering up.

[Pete Holmes]

Right? Covering. Yeah, it's not a great cover story. But back then, why didn't Moses just walk down and say God made these?

[Moshe Kasher]

If you heard an Ammonite Shyamalan twist back in the Bible days, your dick would have exploded.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was considered a huge twist.

[Moshe Kasher]

That would be in God's hand ring. But he threw them.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, you're saying there was a lady in the water.

[Moshe Kasher]

From half court. Moshe catcher.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, so then somebody wrote the Bible, you write. Correct. Moses was inspired to write the Bible. He had connection with God. I don't think that's really in. I don't think that's up for debate. I mean, it's up for debate whether he was inspired by God, but I think that that's implicit in the belief system is that Moses wrote. Was getting revelations from God, writing them down. The really interesting. This is a pretty profound story. There's a passage at the end of the Torah at the end of Exodus, because Moses never made it to Israel. Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

Not let in.

[Pete Holmes]

So who wrote the part where they walked across into Israel? If Moses wrote the Bible and Moses died before they got to Israel, who was the one that wrote the. The whole part at the end?

[Moshe Kasher]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And so some people. The less romantic version is that Aaron, his brother who carried on the torch or whatever wrote, wrote that Aaron the stutterer. No, no, no. Moses was a stutterer.

[Moshe Kasher]

No, Moses spoke for Aaron.

[Pete Holmes]

No other way around.

[Moshe Kasher]

What?

[Pete Holmes]

That's actually what's so interesting about Moses as a figure. I'm reading this book right now called History of the Jews by Paul Johnson, and it's basically saying that Moses couldn't have been a made up figure because who would create a character that flawed? He can't speak, He's a coward, he's stern. People don't like him. He murdered a dude. People don't even like him. The people don't even like him. They like Aaron. Aaron's the guy they like. He's handsome, he can speak well.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, you're right, I did mix it up.

[Pete Holmes]

So they say. So the less romantic version is that Aaron wrote the passages, they crossed over into Israel and Moses stayed on the other side and died. But the more romantic one is that Moses wrote it with tears falling onto the page. He wrote as he watched this people walk away. But then I guess where did the book, if he wrote it, where'd they get the passage From. If they came back, they doubled back a while ago. Yeah. Can I get the medium soup?

[Moshe Kasher]

Well, it's, you know, it's kind of like when I watch a reality show now, and I'm following you mo sh. In the car.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

And you're like, I'm gonna go meet Julie for the first time. I mean, I'm nervous, but, you know, it's been a while since I howled at the moon. You pull up, and then if you watch the reality show, there's one camera following you up to Julie's house, and.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Then the shot that they get is from inside Julie's house opening the door.

[Pete Holmes]

Reality.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You know what I mean?

[Moshe Kasher]

So it's like. That's the Bible version.

[Pete Holmes]

Totally.

[Moshe Kasher]

But who wrote.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

How did they get the camera crew in Julie's house?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And why was Julie miked?

[Pete Holmes]

Just in case. So. So that's. So it's my bar mitzvah. That's the world that I'm living in. This world.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's a wild world.

[Pete Holmes]

A very strange. I couldn't give over to you how strange it is. Yeah. I couldn't possibly. I mean, it's so fucking weird that it's a part of my. If you look at it.

[Moshe Kasher]

Were you trying to, like, bang.

[Pete Holmes]

No, I was terrified. I was. I was terrified. Really. I grew up in this world, I mean, filled with dread and shame that at any moment the covers would be pulled on me and it would be revealed that I was a. I was a sham, that I wasn't religious. I didn't know what I was doing. I used to walk into temple with an English prayer book. A prayer book that had both English and Hebrew. And people would stare at it like I had brought a fucking, like, you.

[Moshe Kasher]

Know, pentouts for them.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, straight. They'd be like, what the fuck is that? Yeah, English. Yeah, that's how. And I was just terrified. In fact, there's a story in the book. This is a very funny story. My. My father would coach us.

[Moshe Kasher]

Is this the story you wanted to tell?

[Pete Holmes]

No. No. Are we done? Were we out of time? No, my father would coach us. He would say. He would give us lies to tell tell. Because he was involved in this shame game, too. And I think he must have been ashamed of his own past as a secular person. And he just wanted people to think of him as this, like, pat. This. You know, there's this thing in religious Judaism called ffb. From. From birth. From means religious. It's a Yiddish for religious. From. From birth. So when you're making a Match, you know. Oh, I got this guy, Pete Holmes. He's great. Brilliant, good looking. Is he ffb? Well, he's not. Ah, it's not fun for me. No. Yes.

[Moshe Kasher]

He's not ffb.

[Pete Holmes]

He's not ffb. Oh, they want it from. From birth.

[Moshe Kasher]

I won't FB anybody if they're not ffb.

[Pete Holmes]

I hear you.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's how I am.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

No, hashtag ffb. From.

[Pete Holmes]

From.

[Moshe Kasher]

From.

[Pete Holmes]

From.

[Moshe Kasher]

From.

[Pete Holmes]

That's an easy one to pronounce. From, From. So we're going to pizza. So my, my father pulls me aside one day and he says to my brother and I, he goes, okay, if anybody ever asks you what yeshiva you go to, what seminary, what religious school you go to, we don't go. We go to public school. Yeah, we're in public school in Oakland. Okay.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

We don't know anything about religious stuff really, except for how to pretend to look like we know what we're doing. What was your catchphrase? I'm a fucking expert.

[Moshe Kasher]

Ah, the mysteries of G D.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Whatever.

[Pete Holmes]

People would ask or say, hey, what can I say? G D notes.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You did have a phrase.

[Pete Holmes]

I didn't have a phrase. I would, Yeah, I would have ways of talking and acting and in temple especially, I would get up and I would shuckle in such a way that it looked very. I would look around and I became this kind of meaning, like feeling sway back and forth.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, I've seen the shock.

[Pete Holmes]

So you. I would look around, I would see the way people do it. Not too much. If you do it too much, it's obvious that you're a neophyte and being like, touched by the spirit. You don't want to look. Look touched by the spirit. You want to look like you're wearing it like a loose garment, you know, you want to look like you've been doing this your whole life.

[Moshe Kasher]

Not touched by the spirit, but having a meaningful phone call with the spirit.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, man, that looks bad.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no.

[Moshe Kasher]

No meaningful phone call.

[Pete Holmes]

No. This should just be like, I'm in. I'm in it. I do this. You couldn't possibly imagine how uninspired the prayer services are in a Satmar Hasidic temple in Sea Gate. You couldn't possibly.

[Moshe Kasher]

They're not, not rousing.

[Pete Holmes]

They're so beyond not rousing. They're incomprehensible. It's literally just a group of men literally going like, mumbling in Hebrew. Mumbling. So this is what I mean. When we got. We stumbled into a bad sect, another Kind of Hasidic Judaism. There'd be songs and dancing and. Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's what your brother was mad about.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. But we didn't know that there was a difference.

[Moshe Kasher]

Right. So.

[Pete Holmes]

My father says if anybody asks you what yeshiva you go to, tell them. Okay? Tell them you go to Beth Jacob. Beth Jacob was the name of an Orthodox temple in Oakland that my father would go to and he would come visit us. Seemed like a plausible lie. My father, the religious Jew, love him, God rest his soul, is telling us a lie to tell people just so that people will not be nosy, you know?

[Moshe Kasher]

Right. My brother, it's one of the Big Ten, though.

[Pete Holmes]

It is one of the Big Ten.

[Moshe Kasher]

Exodus 20, bro.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right. But you know what else is true is it's also one of the big soft 10 to figure out how religious and good people, other people are. Oh, people are very into that. Oh, what yeshiva do you go to? Oh, you go to that yeshiva. Oh, you ffp.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, you're not.

[Moshe Kasher]

Did you claim ffb?

[Pete Holmes]

No one would have ever said, are you from birth? They would say that behind your back.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, he's totally not ffb.

[Pete Holmes]

So clearly I wasn't, by the way. Nobody was fooled.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah. I love. In a world where we all joke that your name is Moshe and you're very, like, overt with your Judaism and your upbringing, you were in a community where people were like, that guy's not a Jew.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, they would scream goy at me.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

They would.

[Pete Holmes]

In the neighborhood, there would be be dodgeball games where it would be the. It would be the ultra Orthodox kids versus the act. The really religious kids. That's how intense it was.

[Moshe Kasher]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. They were. It was so intense. And I lived in this terror, this abject terror that I would get found out in that world when I was a kid, you know?

[Moshe Kasher]

So you would say you went to beth. That's a 90. You went to Beth.

[Pete Holmes]

Beth Church.

[Moshe Kasher]

Beth Jacob.

[Pete Holmes]

But my brother goes, no, no, let's say. Let's say it in Yiddish to make it sound more authentic. Brother's like, you know, like I say in the book, like shucking and jiving, trying to bolster this illusion, you know? And you go, no, no, no, don't say Beth Jacob. Say Base Yaakov. That's Yiddish. It'll sound better. Base Yaakov. Let's say we go to Base Yaakov. So we go to. We go to pizza one day, and sure enough, I don't like this story.

[Moshe Kasher]

I don't like what's happening.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Why would you Tell me specifically what your brother said to say in its Yiddish.

[Pete Holmes]

So, sure enough, we're at the pizza doubling down. We're at the. We're at the pizza joint, and this fucking couple walks right up to us. A fucking couple, A married couple.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, that. You said cuppa, which.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like a heavy Jew.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, cuppa. Cup of soup, medium. This old couple, this married couple walks up to us, starts small talk. Small talk. And then they turn to us and they're like, so, new to what yeshiva do you go? That's another weird thing about American Orthodox Jews. They have a strange vernacular. It's very true. To what yeshiva do you go? Who by? Who are you staying for? Shabbos.

[Moshe Kasher]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, 100%.

[Moshe Kasher]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

100%. They have their own vernacular. Right. It's not a dialect because you would understand it, but it's a very.

[Moshe Kasher]

See, that's interesting, because I was just reading about how, like, couples that have, like, a lot of language of their own.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Are, like, way more likely to stay together.

[Pete Holmes]

Interesting.

[Moshe Kasher]

And that's, like. It's. I'm not saying this is a cult necessarily. I'm just saying that's a cult thing, right? Like, different religions. Different. Certainly modern religions, too, will do that, where we're like. We don't call that this, and we don't talk that way, and we say this, you know, in Christianity. We had that, too.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I imagine some of it has to do with the fact that linguistically, the Hasidic community is mixed up. You know, they've been praying in a dead language. They speak in a dead. In a secondary dead language. And then they live in America, so they say, speak English. So it's all mixed up. Say, like, by who? You staying by the Shabbos?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Staying by never. Whose house are you going to For Shabbos? Yeah, always. Who's staying by?

[Moshe Kasher]

Who are you staying by?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Wow.

[Pete Holmes]

And then new. New is a big thing.

[Moshe Kasher]

New.

[Pete Holmes]

New means, like, so new.

[Moshe Kasher]

New, like a new topic emerges. No, no.

[Pete Holmes]

And you. New. New Pete, when are you gonna. New Pete, when are you gonna put out a new podcast?

[Moshe Kasher]

Like, with Spanish Este.

[Pete Holmes]

Maybe? So they come up to us. So they come up to us, they go, new. So to what yeshiva do you go? And I was just like, you know, just. And I'm like. I mean, I'm just terrified. You know, I can't speak. You know, I just thought that at some point I would just scream, like, I love black people. I didn't know what to say, because I'm a public school kid, my brother gallantly, like, steps in and goes to Basyakov. We go to Basyakov. And then the woman goes, basyakov. The girls school. Apparently, there was a famous girls yeshiva in Brooklyn called Base Yakov. We had not been briefed on this logistical possibility. Oh, no. And we looked to my father for.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like, he was there.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he's there.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

What do we do?

[Pete Holmes]

My dad is like, sort of like looking off into the dark.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

He's like, thank God I'm deaf. Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

So that was another day.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But in my reality, he heard it.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, totally, totally.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But then it was like, thank God people think I'm deaf.

[Pete Holmes]

He's never been deaf. So, you know, that was the kind of world I lived in.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

What did you say?

[Pete Holmes]

I have no idea. I think I grabbed my forehead, pulled it out, popped a zipper handle out, zipped down my own skin, took off my skin and handed it to the lady, like, you'll be keeping that. And walked out into a world of lemon juice. But.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So you'll be keeping that. Oh, man.

[Pete Holmes]

So that's the background. I mean, I wish I have so many stories I could tell you about this world, but I'll.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So many I want to hear.

[Moshe Kasher]

But what was the other one that you were like? The bar mixture and. Oh, so you got a lot of chums in the.

[Pete Holmes]

Chums in the chayer.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

When you do it, it's better. When I do it, it's like, he's trying.

[Pete Holmes]

So my bar mitzvah. So my brother's bar mitzvah was even worse than mine. My brother's bar mitzvah, it would just be like they would hire a hall, a weird catering hall, like, you know, the Armenian ones you see here in la.

[Moshe Kasher]

Huh.

[Pete Holmes]

It was like that, but for Hasidic people. Hira hall, you know, partition down the middle, Men on one side, women on the other. Right.

[Moshe Kasher]

Love it.

[Pete Holmes]

My brother's. The entertainment at my brother's bar mitzvah was literally a man, an old Hasidic man with a synthesizer. I swear. Just a p. Just Medium soup Idle di dal die Medium soup Swimming in the coins like Scrooge McDuck soup what do you have to say? Stephen Hawking, Mazel tov.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Do the song again just as you did it.

[Pete Holmes]

Idle diddle die Medium soup oh, hi diddle die, diddle die Medium soup what did the Jews do? We survived the Holocaust so we could come and never talk to non Jews again. Hi diddle die, diddle die Medium soup hi diddle die Diddle die. Medium soup. New to what yeshiva did you go? The girls school. Shame on you. You're a public school guy.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It sounded Native American, which made it really.

[Pete Holmes]

Because that. Actually, when you started banging on the table, that was actually very legit.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Really?

[Pete Holmes]

That would be a very. That was what you would do. You would bang on the table and create a beat. So that was just one man.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Medium soup. So they make beverages small, medium, large. Why does the soup.

[Moshe Kasher]

Why?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, so. So my brother had that entertainment, but my bar mitzvah came around. My dad convinced me not to invite my own mother, and. And look, it sounds like I'm resentful of my dad. I'm really not. I think everybody in my family was. My mom was a complete villain in the story, too. You know, she did terrible things, too. I mean.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, you said she lived in your bosom.

[Pete Holmes]

And she told my. Told me my father loved my brother more than me. And she did terrible. Everybody did terrible. I did terrible things. I was violent back. The whole thing is a fucking mess. You know, we were in a typically atypical dysfunctional family. So at my bar mitzvah, I don't know anyone at my own bar mitzvah. None of my friends. Not one of my friends. It was just, as I say in my act, there's just extras from the set of Fiddler on the Roof that had been hired to come play the part of my friends and family. No, that's Little Big Man. Different Jew, different movie. But for the entertainment. For the entertainment. My dad, he stepped his game up, maybe because he felt guilty about that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Maybe Medium Soup wasn't available.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm booked. He got this guy, Mordechai Ben David, who is the biggest Hasidic Jewish pop star in the world, or was at that time. There might be people that have eclipsed him at this point, but he was like, he's a big star, and if you Google him. I've googled him since. His shit is pretty good. I mean, he's got a good. He's got a good voice. I mean, he's got something. And he lived in the neighborhood my dad lived in.

[Moshe Kasher]

He's got that king gene or something, right?

[Pete Holmes]

So he shows up to my bar mitzvah, and my dad goes, look, it's Mordechai Ben David. You know, he said he had to come play. He wanted to come play. And I. It took me 20 years to realize there's no fucking way Mordechai Ben David had to play. Yeah, it'd be like if you walked into some Kind of kids, you know, bar mitzvah. And they're like. That's comedian Pete Holmes. He said he had to perform here. He wanted to be at your bar mitzvah so bad. No, my dad begged him to come or paid him, and he came, and it was like a big deal. And, you know, unfortunately, I am available for bar mitzvah. Yeah, right. Drake style. My, you know, my dad was, you know, spared the shocking realization because he was deaf, that even the best of Hasidic pop stars still sound pretty much hide, it'll die. But I was, you know, whatever it was, that was my bar mitzvah, some fucking miserable. Yeah. And what I ended up spending my bar mitzvah money on, just to tell you the question you asked at the beginning, what I spent, what I ended up blowing all fifteen hundred dollars of my bar mitzvah money on, was phone sex. I would sneak down.

[Moshe Kasher]

I think you mentioned that.

[Pete Holmes]

Where I became a fuck guy.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's perfect.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I would sneak downstairs while my Hasidic family slept, and I would call phone sex lines in the middle of the.

[Moshe Kasher]

Night and then pay them back.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, then eventually, when you're doing phone sex, you're just trying. Speaking of cognitive dissonance about texts, you're just trying to ignore the fact that there's phone bills coming and that deaf people don't call phone sex lines so they'll be able to identify who the culprit is. Phone sex is entirely wasted on the deaf. So little die, diddle die. What are you wearing? Are you wet for me? Hi, diddle die. Of course. I am 18. Why are you asking? Oh, I sound like a teen.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Wait, were you good at phone sex as a teenager?

[Pete Holmes]

I guess I must have been. Huh. But they're good.

[Moshe Kasher]

A lot of practice, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

They're good. Yeah, they're. They're used to. I mean, that's their job, you know.

[Moshe Kasher]

Then they get a lot of kids. I think I maybe told this story on the show before, but I called the phone sex line and I was like, hi.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, what are your. What are your. No Jews in sight. Wait, why?

[Pete Holmes]

Because you're Mickey. You sound like Ranky Mouse, straight up.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That was good. Not a Jew in, sir. Hey, Minnie Gorsh.

[Pete Holmes]

Mickey, there's not a Jew inside. All right, so phone sex 10. Phone sex. That's how it happened. I mean, I can't do the. I want to do the bit, but it's like. It's a bit. I'm not gonna do a bit on your podcast. Oh, you have A bit. Come see me live. It's the, it's the bulk of my story.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, right.

[Pete Holmes]

But the bulk of my current touring hour is this story of the phone sex. So come see me live. Yeah, but so years go by, 10 years later, it's my, you know, my dad gets sick very quickly, rapidly declines. He's, you know, dying. I have that conversation with Shmieloo. You remember Shmiel? Of course.

[Moshe Kasher]

You're so lucky.

[Pete Holmes]

You're so lucky you can actually do the scandalous thing of becoming an attorney.

[Moshe Kasher]

What I wouldn't give to be grueling away in law school.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, exactly.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's his Bahamas.

[Pete Holmes]

That's his rock star, actually. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's his stand up comic or whatever.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So my dad dies and we're sitting shiva, you know, and the way that shiva works is you sit there and three times a day, 10 men will gather and you'll say a prayer for the soul of the departed. And you have to have 10 men for some special express train prayer to go to God.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

So it is.

[Moshe Kasher]

Hey, God, we got a prayer.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, how many men? It's four. I'm busy. Call me when it's 10. I'll have a medium soup. He's at a diner. For some reason. He's at a diner.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

If there were Oscars for improvised medium soup callbacks, everyone would standing ovation when you got that award. God, I throw you into a God room. I'm picturing him just on a cloud or something.

[Pete Holmes]

They do though. But he also is at a restaurant because all things are possible with the Lord.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm a medium sl.

[Pete Holmes]

He turns away from his assistant back to his waitress.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

God himself, the Lord finds a bowl a bit much and a cup not quite enough.

[Pete Holmes]

The question is, if there's an all powerful God, can he make a cup of soup that is medium enough even for him?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And I like that. It's not like clam chowder or minestrone. It's just soup. I'll have the medium soup. I think you said a medium. I'll have a medium soup.

[Pete Holmes]

I'll have a medium soup. What kind of soup? I'm God. Matzo ball. So. So, so. So as you know, the bar mitzvah is the ascension into manhood, you know. Yep. So 10 years later, my dad is sick and he dies and we're sitting shiva. And like I said, this express train. So 10, 10 men will gather at the house every day as you commemorate the. Do you want to do some more soup?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'm just laughing about. What did you happen? 10 men come in.

[Pete Holmes]

So one day, 10 men come in. Actually, 10 men come in. My father's best friend, Billy Newman, who is a deaf man, and another deaf man who's my brother, his brother in law are there. And then guess who comes and is the tenth men. Tenth man, Mordecai. Mordechai Ben David walks into the house just to pay his respects. And he's the 10th man. And we say, great, we've got 10 men. Let's start the prayers. And Mordechai Ben David. David, stop, stop, stop, stop. We don't have 10 men officially yet. The two deaf guys don't count. Now I'm in my father's house, a deaf man's house, a deaf man's house. His best friend and his brother in law are in there. And he stops it and says the two deaf guys can't be counted in a minion. What's called a minion, the express train thing, because they're deaf. It's theologically incorrect. But I. And it's also just common sense. Wise. Indecent.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

You know?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And I wanted to stand up. You know me.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm an asshole. I'll fucking tell anybody anything. Yeah, Yeah. I want. I'm 20. I want to stand up and say, you know, get the fuck out of my house. But I'm so filled with that childhood shame when I was a kid being found out to be not good enough in that Jewish way. I just couldn't muster the strength to do it. And I just sat there as he did this. And we waited for two more men to come. Oh, and my brother too. We both just sat there, were shocked. Our dad died literally days earlier, like two days earlier. And we didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. And I just sat there and I promised myself that if I were ever to be asked to do a prominent podcast for a second time, I would use that opportunity to tell the world what a piece of shit Mordechai Ben David was. And my book and every other form of media that you've ever had. He didn't just make a mistake because my aunt wrote him a letter and said, this is why theologically, what you did was wrong, and this is why morally what you did was wrong. And he never wrote back, so he deserves. I hope to God he's heard about my book. That passage in the book.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Where I say, I just promised myself if I ever wrote a book, I would tell the world, use it to tell the world what A piece of shit Mortal Kab and David was.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, wow.

[Pete Holmes]

So here's the end of the story. It was really intense.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

End of the story. A year later.

[Moshe Kasher]

There is a sketch version where he keeps going down the line of why some of the guys don't count as men.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh yeah, Bernie's not a man. Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Look at this little weird neck. We need another guy to cover Bernie.

[Pete Holmes]

Hold on.

[Moshe Kasher]

I wish I hadn't picked such an obvious name.

[Pete Holmes]

So a year goes by.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And the Shiva is really an intense thing. You know, you spend seven days sitting, dealing with your grief. The end of the seven day, you stand up, you walk around the block as if to let the soul of the departed person go. And they're gone. Then you spend 30 days not shaving, not listening to music, not going to movies. And then you spend a year saying the prayer for the dead when you go to temple. And it's like a very structured grief thing.

[Moshe Kasher]

What happens if someone dies during the Shiva? Someone else dies.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I guess you would just have no idea.

[Moshe Kasher]

Start over.

[Pete Holmes]

14 day Shiva. Yikes. That sounds shitty.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's too much Shiva. What if they die on the first day of Shiva and you're like, we.

[Pete Holmes]

Could, we could double it up, do an eight day Shiva Mordechai. What do you think? It's good.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No Devs.

[Pete Holmes]

Was he deaf, the guy that died? Yeah, he was. Alright, you're fine. You don't even have to start over.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

30 minute Shiva for a deaf. You wipe your hands with a moist towelette. You roller skate with one roller skate. That's a shiver for a death.

[Pete Holmes]

Shiver for a death. Some laughter, some tears. I mean, speak of gallows humor and pain and humor. Like, you know, people, you know, this is the stuff that I think back at. This is how I find like. Like we're talking about pain through humor. Like this is it. Like my whole book was, was about. My whole life is about laughing at things that were painful.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And there was this AA speaker I want once heard it said, anything you ever laugh at, you'll never be ashamed of again. I think that really resonated with me. So I think that's why I tell jokes about any subject. I think that's great with impunity because it's like, this is what we're doing.

[Moshe Kasher]

You'Ll never be ashamed of again. Yeah, I love that. And that's a good mantra for this. You know, we share so much on the show, right. You have to wonder like, what is the purpose of that? All and then I also love. I believe it was Freud said the only way to not need therapy or to, like, be completely sound is to have no secrets. And I find that to be very nice, too.

[Pete Holmes]

For sure. You know, there's also a saying from the Torah, which is. There is. There's two people that are guaranteed a place in. What? Say it. What?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I just feel a medium soup coming.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no, no, no, no, it's not. It's not. This is real. Yeah. There's a Mishnah, you know, the ones that you believe, all of them. You're a fool. But there's a Mishnah that says that there are two people that are guaranteed a place in the world to. To come. One. I don't remember. Two. I don't remember the first one. Two. Oh, comedian.

[Moshe Kasher]

No.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. The comedian that made a person laugh is guaranteed a place in the world to come because he brought joy to other people. No. Swear to God.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's great.

[Pete Holmes]

Guaranteed a place in heaven is a mitzvah. That Mishnah is one that I believe because it's convenient. Yeah, exactly. Because it applies to me.

[Moshe Kasher]

That's great.

[Pete Holmes]

So a year goes by. It's a year later. I'm now, I think, I guess 21 years old. The year after my dad died. I'm gonna start comedy pretty soon. I'm not there yet at this point in my life. I go home, I grow my hair out, I look crazy. You know what I mean? Like, I look. I look like I've got long hair, super long hair. I just look like a wild man. You know, big old kind of Samsony hair.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like wolf.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah. Or like Samson, you know? You know the story of Samson in.

[Moshe Kasher]

The Bible with the gauntlet?

[Pete Holmes]

Got all of his power from his hair. From his hair. You know, he knocked down the walls to Jericho because they had this powerful hair, you know, the super, super strength.

[Moshe Kasher]

Look at that hair.

[Pete Holmes]

So what a powerful head of hair.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So the two guys watching it, like a giant man.

[Pete Holmes]

Hold on a minute.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Interpret. Interpreting it so wrong. It must be the hair.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God. The writer of the story, he's a giant. I mean, big, strong man. Wow. Great hair. Oh, he's got good hair. Must be. That's before they knew what strength was.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's gotta be that hair.

[Pete Holmes]

I would assume it's the hair.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You mean, you want me to rewrite this where it's not his hair.

[Pete Holmes]

It's clearly his hair. I'll have a medium soup.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Okay, so look, look, let's take the manuscript. We'll Get a couple medium soups.

[Pete Holmes]

I got lunch with God now. Okay, I too will have a medium soup. Thank you.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I'll have what he's having. Always the right choice when you're having lunch with God.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh yeah, totally. You're in a diner, you look over at somebody making a lot of noise, right? Sitting with Billy Crystal, making a lot of noise. He's going, let there be light. I'll have medium soup. I'll have what he's having.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That's what God says when he comes. Let there be light. That was your. What was it? When Harry. Sally orgasm scene.

[Pete Holmes]

I just want to stop you because I feel like you just said something accidentally profound. Has anyone ever said before that the creation of the universe is God coming? When you think about it, that's what that is. I'm not trying to make a joke here even, but it's hilarious.

[Moshe Kasher]

Like life exists.

[Pete Holmes]

Shoots out of God.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

The big bang.

[Pete Holmes]

The big bang is God literally shooting fat universe sized load all over time. And what was, what is now? Time and space?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

The biggest load ever. This is a big fat pile of cum. It contains this universe, the multiverse. The universe where you kiss the girl and don't kiss a girl as you are drenched in God's Cummings. Welcome back to Going Going gone Condi Act 1. We discuss a medium soup size bowl.

[Moshe Kasher]

Of God's come Buddha with Buddha with butterfly wings.

[Pete Holmes]

Act 3. Taking God's Come and telling everybody else to come on, change the world. Come on, I have a dream. Come on ye faithful come. Are you faithful on today's Come out.

[Moshe Kasher]

Ye faithful gay people.

[Pete Holmes]

Come out.

[Moshe Kasher]

Come out of the closet. Where, where were we?

[Pete Holmes]

So it's a year later. Yep, I got long hair like Samson.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yep.

[Pete Holmes]

A walk.

[Moshe Kasher]

It's gotta be the hit.

[Pete Holmes]

It's a. It must be the hit. I go back to Seagate to, to New York on the year anniversary of my father's death to celebrate his death. And what you do, you get together, I mean celebrate his life. But the year anniversary is like a big thing. So I fly back home and I. And you know, you have a little party and then you go to temple and you do this final prayer of the morning of the dead of the year. You're done, you're done with this prayer that you've been saying all year long. And I fly back home and we're getting ready to go to temple and all of a sudden I realize that I've got this fucking hair, you know, And I shrink to this little 7 year old kid again in that pizza place, like fucking base. Yakov, no skin. Terrified. Everybody's gonna find out. And of course they're gonna find out. It's demonstrative. It's on my. It's on my head.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I have long hair. There's no.

[Moshe Kasher]

You were supposed to stop cutting it, though.

[Pete Holmes]

No, no, no, no.

[Moshe Kasher]

That was just during the 30 days.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no, you don't shave for 30 days. That's not connected to. No, I've got literally long hair. Like. Like if an English prayer book is an alarm bell for. Look at this goy. Like, yeah, I have long hair. Like a rock and roll guy. Now that's fine in Oakland, where I'm living. But again, I'm not 21 years old, you know, But I'm. I'm freaking out. Like, I'm a seven year old boy again. Everybody's gonna know. I'm gonna go to temple. They're all gonna turn, they're all gonna look. I'm like, I'm. I'm literally freaking out. I'm grabbing my little brother's bar mitzvah hat. Like, you know those Borsalinos that the Jews wear? You know the, like, fedoras?

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, this is not the cool Williamsburg fedora. This is like the old school, like, Mafioso fedora.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm like, literally like comic books stuffing. It's a hat for a person with a smaller head than me. It does not fit. It does not fit on top of my head.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I'm like stuffing my hair into.

[Moshe Kasher]

The hat like Marge Simpson style.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Like the scarecrow from wizard of Oz is like stuffing my brains back into my head as they spill out. And all of a sudden I'm literally panicking, you know, because it's like, if you could go back to your place of deepest childhood trust, trauma, and have it physically manifested on your head. And I just take this moment where I go. I take a deep breath and I go, look at my feet. You know, I go, okay, here I am. I'm 21 years old. I'm not a child. I'm not seven. I'm not back then there's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm here. They're going to see my hair. I took a deep breath. I took that hat off of my. My head, let my hair spill down onto my shoulders. Like Samson, you know, I got my strength back. I broke down the walls to my past. And I that day became a man. Yeah. Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

And you went.

[Pete Holmes]

And I went. And I just thought, this is it. Man, what do I care? I'm a grown up. Yeah, I'm a man now. That's the day I felt like I became a man. Yeah, what do I care what these random, like, medium soups think? What the fuck do I care? Why do I care? It's not even like, fuck those guys. It's like, fuck my own past. Yeah, what. What world am I living in where I care?

[Moshe Kasher]

What belief system? What's important?

[Pete Holmes]

What do I care what these strangers in a shtetl in Brooklyn think? Oh, no, he's not religious. I'm not religious. Yeah, they're right.

[Moshe Kasher]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And what are they gonna do with that information? They're gonna go like this. Oh, not religious. Scandalous. I mean, they're just gonna go back to life. And so that's what happened. I went to temple. You know what happened in temple? And I walked in with long hair, but nothing. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, nothing happened. They probably looked and thought, oh, that guy's not religious. You know what I mean?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah, I do.

[Pete Holmes]

If I'd been like, can I hang out with you? They probably been like, no, you have long hair. Yeah, that was it. Yeah, I was done.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, that's great.

[Pete Holmes]

And I've never felt ashamed religiously since that point.

[Moshe Kasher]

I love it. That is a good way to end.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Moshe Kasher]

Do you feel satiated?

[Pete Holmes]

I feel very good.

[Moshe Kasher]

I feel great. Gosh, I have. You make me laugh so hard.

[Pete Holmes]

You too, man. You're the easiest person to talk to in the world for me.

[Moshe Kasher]

I appreciate that. But we were crying with laughter on the way over.

[Pete Holmes]

That was so fun.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I've been weeping this episode.

[Pete Holmes]

Really funny. There's been some great moments.

[Moshe Kasher]

Oh, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I loved it.

[Moshe Kasher]

And now begins the post show. Why does Katie have a 49ers sticker up? Get that shit out of here.

[Pete Holmes]

Are you a football?

[Moshe Kasher]

No, this is a house of nerds.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, fair enough, right?

[Moshe Kasher]

I don't care about the 49ers. Well, thank you, Moshe. That was incredible.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah, dude, I love you.

[Moshe Kasher]

I love you too, man. So much. And I really appreciate it. Do you mind saying the silly thing we say? Keep it crisp. You.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wait, I'll do it as I want to grasp me. No, no, no, no. Hold on. Gr. Me. Oh, wait, how did I do it with the. Yeah. Guinea band. Gramps me. Anyway, guys, keep it crispy. Wait, do we plug things? Just go to my website or something. Casher in the Rye, the champs podcast dot com. I love you, Mo Cash. Thank you, Pete.

[Moshe Kasher]

Thanks.