I've fallen asleep at red lights before. Not like passed out, but like I've put the parking break on and reclined my seat and taken a nap.
— Ari Shaffir
I'll just walk around New York and watch people on the streets.
I'm not intentionally dirty. It just kind of happens. It's not like I'm a shock comic who's looking to walk people.
I was on the outside of the industry. So I started a podcast early in the podcast boom and that caught on a little. I made an album that went to No. 1 on the iTunes charts. I made my own special. I started my own storytelling show.
If I focus solely on developing new material, then I can get a new 45 minute to an hour in about six months. Then I'll work on it and work on it and can make it killer within another six months or so.
Everyone in L.A. talks about getting an agent or a manager in terms of getting on a sitcom or getting on a movie or doing something else.
People get mad at bad comedy. Way more mad than at bad novels.
I'm pretty much only friends with comedians.
Being Orthodox Jewish is kind of like being raised on like network sitcoms.
The fact that I didn't believe in God was something that I just didn't consider. And then when I did, it was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm out.'
Once I started getting more successful, I just stopped caring completely - ‘I'll just do exactly what I want. It doesn't matter.'
Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura… those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.
When Joe Rogan started his podcasts he'd have me, Joe Diaz, and all our friends help him for the first few. And I told him 'Dude, no one will listen to audio that's over an hour long. You've got to end it at 59:59 or less.' And I was way wrong.
Sometimes I start off shows by explaining to people that it's just a bunch of stories - I always say 'It's like standup, just less funny.'
Marc Maron yells at people. I have a memory of him yelling at Jonah Ray from offstage about something he was saying, just fun stuff.
The worst is when you bomb and when you bomb in front of someone you're trying to impress. That's the worst.
When people tell me to do a clean show, I'm like, 'Guys, I don't even understand your thoughts anymore.' What, you can't say a curse word? Nobody thinks that way!
I definitely recommend keeping frozen corn dogs in your freezer.
No astronauts look like George Clooney.
If you like a conversational style of comedy, if you like comedy that's a little dangerous, I'm your guy.
To me, every time it goes badly I see it as a good thing - because that means I'm one step closer to where I want to be.
I love doing my podcast, but it's not my art form. I don't have to work on it. It's off the cuff.
I was playing basketball, and I had hemorrhoids in high school.
It's not like I have campaigns, I don't want to be an activist or anything.
I genuinely like haggis. Everybody told me I was supposed to hate it, but I really did enjoy it.
The biggest thing I lost when I left religion was that sense of community and the culture. It was an unexpected kind of free-falling. When I was in it, I didn't understand how much the community was a part of my life.
You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting.
Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, ‘Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.
Laughs, just laughs. It's the only motivation of a comic.
That anonymity that comes with talking in front of a crowd of people you've never met allows you to reveal anything, because you don't really have to associate with any one of them.
My father said that I was lower than a dog, because even a dog believes in God.
No one's telling Tarantino what to do. You might like it or you might not like it, but the reality is he's getting his own vision out there.
Stage fright is a real thing. It's debilitating to some people.
The only threat is a growing pushback from militant liberals who seek to destroy free expression as they look to limit the speech of anyone who has feelings they find objectionable. It makes comics tentative to push boundaries and freely talk about the thoughts in their heads. That part is terrible for development.
I love gummy bears, pretzels of all kinds, popcorn, Doritos - those are all healthy snacks.
At The Comedy Store, night after night, the crowds are fuller. It used to be Tuesday at 9 you'd have to start with six people. Now you come in on Tuesdays and it's 100-plus people and you're like, 'Really? On a Tuesday?'
I'm just a weird mix of immature and intelligent and I like to share my point of view and who I am.
Failing is part of my process. A new bit never works the first time. I figure I have to bomb 7 times to make it good. So I tweak it.
I know how lazy I am. So if I have to go somewhere else I can't get to easily, I talk myself out of it.
I hate being rejected.
I'm a bit of an introvert, so after talking for an hour and then shaking hands and taking pictures with the people who came out, I kind of need to be alone for a bit to get away from all stimuli.
I'm not as much a fan of the venues as I am the comics who inhabit them. I don't care if it's a bomb shelter, a bus, or a theater, if I'm watching somebody who makes me laugh, I'm down.
I never had good grades until I dropped out of religion. And then suddenly, my grades went up.
It's all about the art. It's not about getting on TV or not getting on TV.
I worked for the Comedy Store as an employee trying to become a paid regular. I had this dream of achieving a half hour special on TV.
I used to get a lot of death threats. After a while I realized that no one's gonna do anything or they would've.
Very rarely are you going to see a story about a comic winning a fight. Yeah we're all degenerates in some way and we're all awful people, so we just show our weaknesses.
As long as you have your own apartment and you can pretty much make rent for the next year, you're golden!
Figure out a way to get back onstage because once you do it a few times you'll get over it. Unless it's like a clinical thing. I don't know about clinical like stage fright, that might be worse than what I'm talking about. But if it's normal stage fright get over it.
The Comedy Store is my home!
