Ari Shaffir

Agnosticism, that's just immaturity. You only say "who knows" because so many other people believe in it. You're not saying "who knows" because you've seen some studies on it but you're not quite convinced. There's zero proof the other way. And yet you're letting them off the hook only because there are a lot of them. Well, there are a lot of rapists but you wouldn't say "maybe they have a point" just because there's lots of them. Make your own decisions. Grow up. You know the answer.

Favorite standup comic of all time. (I hate the word favorite. It's too exclusive). But for one special, Sam Kinison was fucking perfect. One special. Then it went to his head and the rest of his career served as a warning to me on what to avoid. And then currently, I'll never miss the chance to watch a set from Bill Burr, Dave Attell, Rory Scovel and Kurt Metzger.

Damn. There's so many. I'll give you a couple. We're all meaningless. In the grand scheme of history, we are a blink on the timeline. A blink. So I took that to mean I should live what makes me happy before I'm dust. I can tell people what I think about them when it's a good thing. I was holding it back too much. After my first real shroom trip, I sat in my car on the way down and texted Chris Fairbanks to tell him that I thought his delivery style was really unique. Things like that. Why keep it to yourself. There are hundreds more. These are just a deep one and a simple one.

I'll refer to some paraphrased advice from "Vagabonding" by Rolf Potts. Once you decide you want to travel, stop by EVERYTHING. Make no new purchases. Every shirt you don't buy puts you closer to being in some faraway place. Every lunch you pack from home gets you a little closer to crazy foreign street foods. Every pregame session and snuck in flask put you that much closer to drinking a local beer in a new country. You can save way more than you think. But you gotta stop making all purchases. And spend as little on recreation as you can. You can save up thousands like that in no time. And you could go to SE Asia for 4 months on $5,500. Guaranteed. Flights included.

It put tons of strain on me and my relationships with the people in my life. I only knew orthodox Jews. It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do at that point and my first real decision as a man.

I don't think you can say there's a "best" part. It comes down to what you're into. Thailand has a way bigger party scene than Myanmar, for instance. So if you're into partying, I'd go to Thailand. But Myanmar is far less mapped out. So if you're into exploring, I'd say Myanmar. Each country is its own thing. And the experiences you have will depend on your attitude, who you meet, and even things like the weather. So find some place that interests you and realize that no matter where you choose, it'll be the right place because you'll be traveling.

I wonder if a lot of that "kids are too PC" talk is from out of touch comedians who don't know how to relate to a younger crowd. And sometimes they blame that on political correctness. Here's an example. I used to play these teen tours at the Improv. Other comics hated it, but I loved it. The room was full of 14 and 15 year olds. And I would get absolutely FILTHY. Just the dirtiest sex talk and crowd work I could think of. And the kids loved it. But when I did a joke about fucking in the shower, it'd always fall flat. Now, that's not due to political correctness, because it's not any more correct or incorrect than any of the other sex jokes. But it involved a more detailed sex move. A sex m...[Read more]

Try to take in some sun every day. Like 15-30 minutes of direct sunlight. Every day. And stay on the medication until you and your doctor are ready to go off as a team. And when you do go off, challenge the people in your life to stay up on you and to tell you when or if they think you're starting to slip.

One time I waited for a year after my friend ratted on me. Waited till he thought I had long since forgot about it. And then we took a trip to San Diego. Super fun couple of days. And then I left him there. Drove back to LA on my own and left him a note that said "rat" on the outside. On the inside was a photocopy of the letter he had written ratting me out a year before. #neverforget

It's a tough question. What we're talking about here is comics who are way too undeveloped on stage to be where they're at in their careers. The same thing happened with some of the roasts. It elevated features into headliners. That doesn't hurt standup, that just exposes audiences to standup who are less developed than they'd normally be exposed to. On one hand, though, people leave those shows thinking the whole art form isn't that great. So that does hurt the perception of standup. On the other hand, those people bring in new audiences to shows. People who would normally never have seen anything. And they'll then be fans of the craft and many will see other shows. So that's really grea...[Read more]

This is something I get asked a lot. My answer is to just set a date, maybe a month out or 3 months out. Whatever. Find an open mic and set yourself a date when that open mic is happening. And then tell people that you'll be doing an open mic on that date if that'll help drive you. You don't (and shouldn't) tell anybody to come. Just set that date and stick to it. You will be nervous. But once it's done you'll have already started standup.