When you start doing comedy, you think to yourself, "I want to be a headliner." And you become a headliner, and you're like, "Oh wait, this isn't what I meant. I meant I want to be a headliner that's famous enough that people come see me specifically." And that's a huge leap, because most of the time most of the audience is there to see comedy in general. They're not there to see you.
Moshe KasherWho's famous anymore? No one. There are these comedians that are famous in a weird way. There are comedians, like Anjelah Johnson and Russell Peters, [who] are unbelievably famous, but in a way they're selling out 1,000-person stadiums.
Moshe KasherI think people are lonely and desperate for attention and unemployed and bored. I don't mean that these are losers that live with their mom, although that is true for many of these people. I think people in general are literally underemployed and lonely and bored in this country because of the economic downturn, and because of the isolation that's available because of the internet. The internet has both freed people up to connect with each other and isolated them.
Moshe KasherThere were some particular themes that I knew I wanted to hit, and when I got deeper into the project I found that it was becoming serious in and on its own. By the end, it's not very funny at all. I think, now, that part of the power of the book is that the jokes are kind of sparkly distractions.
Moshe KasherWhen you start doing comedy, you think to yourself, "I want to be a headliner." And you become a headliner, and you're like, "Oh wait, this isn't what I meant. I meant I want to be a headliner that's famous enough that people come see me specifically." And that's a huge leap, because most of the time most of the audience is there to see comedy in general. They're not there to see you.
Moshe KasherI learned as a really young kid, when my dad was telling me one story and my mom was telling me another that, even as a 5-year-old boy, there was no way that both of these stories are true. Something in the middle is true, and I have to figure out what it is, what the truth is, and I never did quite figure that out.
Moshe Kasher