Ari Shaffir’s YouNameMyTour Tour is Happening and It’s Dark, Uncensored and Really Funny
Ari Shaffir is hitting the road with a brand-new hour and this time he’s going back to his roots and channeling the good old-fashioned stand-up he used to do back when he was still working his way up the ranks and waiting to become a paid regular at The Comedy Store. He’s also letting his fans name this tour anything they want. His only requirement is that their idea makes him laugh and so far, he’s given his tour over 70 hilarious and often disturbing names that are all keeping with the spirit of comedy that is so undeniably Ari. I’m a huge fan of his work and was beyond excited when I was given the opportunity to speak with him about life, The Comedy Store and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
Ari Shaffir is going to be Ari Shaffir, no more, no less. His palette is dark, his comedy’s uncensored, and his devotion to his craft is unshakable. It may seem logical enough to believe that he’s always been a wild child, with a spirit that’s impossible to break, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Ari was raised under the strict ideology of his Orthodox Jewish household and was a pious and respectful young man; he even spent time at a yeshiva in Israel because he wanted to be a rabbi. Sure, he may have held hands with a girl or two during the summers he spent at sleepaway camp and had his first real kiss well into his high school years as a teenager, but that’s about as far as our sweet, young Ari was willing to push his boundaries back then. So, how did this innocent and compliant caterpillar make the transformation and emerge from his chrysalis the outspoken, fearless comedian we all know and love? It was quite a process, but after speaking with him, I believe his metamorphosis began the summer he was first introduced to stand-up comedy by a friend at sleepaway camp. Ari said, “We would listen to Dice and Eddie Murphy on tape. On recorded tape. It was bootleg, which was pretty normal back then… Dice was the biggest thing in the world and so was Eddie Murphy. We were middle school seniors and I remember listening to them in the student union. We would listen to them there, but if a teacher came in, we’d quickly shut it off because we knew it was wrong and we’d die laughing!” I can totally imagine what it must’ve felt like to be in that student union, listening to stand-up for the first time, trying not to get caught and laughing my ass off with my buddies. Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Murphy’s comedy struck Ari like a light and resonated with him. I asked Ari if he ever looks back and gives Dice and Eddie credit for lighting the fuse to his love of the dark and edgy side of stand-up and he said, “I watched a lot of stand-up on network TV, on shows like ‘The Tonight Show.’ Those guys were all funny, I’d laugh, but they didn’t resonate with me. They were funny but the wrongness wasn’t there with those sets… You know how it is. They’d be like, ‘You can’t do this joke… Take that word out. There’s no teeth in it. I like the wrong. Maybe it is from Dice and Eddie Murphy.” Ari did his best to remain the respectful son and student he always was, but eventually he had the realization that he no longer believed in God and wanted to become a comedian or a screen writer instead of a rabbi. It would’ve been so much easier for him to take the path of least resistance and just fall in line with everyone else’s expectations of him, but not our Ari. In 1999 he broke the news to his family that he had lost his faith in God, changed his mind about becoming a rabbi and wanted to move to California to make it in show business. Like a caterpillar eating endless leaves to gain the energy they need to make a major change in their lives, mustering up the courage to tell his father (who’s a Holocaust survivor) that he no longer believed in God gave Ari the strength he needed to leave his family’s home, religion and expectations and to never be afraid to stand up for what he believes in ever again. It was the first and perhaps most crucial lesson Ari needed to learn on his journey to becoming the great artist he is today.
Once he made it to California, Ari went on a job hunt and as the fates allowed, he ended up at the world-famous Comedy Store which soon became his chrysalis. I love Mitzi Shore and The Comedy Store and I swear there’s an alchemy to that place that’s like no other. The quantity and quality of talent and comedy gold that’s been created on those stages is insane and that reminded me of a connection. I wondered if Ari made the decision to apply for a job at The Store intentionally because of the roots Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Murphy had there with Mitzi but he said, “No. I never heard of The Comedy Store or Mitzi Shore. I was surprised when people would be like, ‘Yeah, it’s a famous place.’ I’d be like, ‘Really?! Why have I never heard of it?’ I just passed by on the way to apply for a job at another club and doubled back and applied for a job there too.” If Ari didn’t realize what a major deal this place was before he got there, he had to of lost his cool and fangirled out over Mitzi once he realized who and what she was, right?! Wrong! Ever the logical, cool-headed guy that he is, Ari said “I just knew her as this lady who’s the boss. I remember asking the talent coordinator for my first of many, many showcases. I was like, ‘Hey, do you think I could get some advice on my set from Mitzi?’ And she goes, ‘Yeah. Ok. I’ll set up a showcase.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know. What is that?’ She explained that I would showcase for Mitzi and I said, ‘Ok. I just want some advice though or some feedback.’ Even though I already knew that you become a paid regular and then you can go up, I wasn’t even thinking that. I was still an open-micer, so I wasn’t even considering that I could be on a professional lineup. It was cool that we got access to them, but it was like you were a ball-boy. You’re not thinking, they’re going to see I can hit and bring me in. You’re just a ball-boy with no goal in mind. Then people found out and were like, ‘Oh! You got a showcase?! Yeah, that’s big! You got a showcase; you might get past!’ So, then I got all nervous! I just wanted feedback! That’s all!” I asked Ari what kind of feedback Mitzi gave him and the most wonderful thing happened… He did his Mitzi Shore impression! Maybe it’s because I live so close to Wisconsin, but his Mitzi impression is one of my favorite things in life. “She goes, ‘You’re too hyper.’ Then, another showcase later she was like ‘You’re still too hyper.’ It might have been the second or third showcase when I said, ‘You gotta hype the crowd up, Mitzi!’ And she goes, ‘You’re just rallying yourself up.’ She was 100% right. They were laughing because there are different characters people can do on stage and one of them, I’ll call retard. It’s when you act a little dumb or off in some way. There’s a range in versions of this character. It’s not you. You’re just playing a character. The laughs you’re getting may be from your joke writing but it could also be from acting like a weirdo character.”
Love her or hate her, Mitzi was a master of her artform, crafting comedians and although he may have been getting laughs, the quality of Ari’s writing wasn’t what was shining in that moment and Mitzi could see that shtick was getting in the way of Ari being Ari. He said, “Yeah, she saw it. You could do anything at that point. You could read out of the dictionary and get the same laughs. So, what’s going to help you?” Mitzi leaned on tough love as her methodology so her lessons may have been lost on those who couldn’t see past her approach but despite her bluntness and refusal to pass him, Mitzi had a genuine fondness for Ari. He said, “As I was getting in there, her health was starting to fail. I answered the phones for my first job there. One time she called and wanted to come in, but she had just lost the ability to drive so she was like, someone’s got to come get me. Where’s so and so? I went to go check and transferred the call to the manager’s office to see if the runners were there. Freddy Soto was a runner, Bob Oschack and Sam Kinison was too. The runner was the chore person. They weren’t there, but I got off in like 5 minutes. It was 8:55 so I said, ‘My shift ends at 9:00. I’m just gonna hang out here anyway. I can come get you.’ From then on, she’d be like, come get me for this, or come get me for that, and I would. I wasn’t a runner, I didn’t have that job, but I would take her in a lot and sit with her and when I would drop her off, I wouldn’t just drop her off, I’d sit and watch the news with her. Or she’d be like, come get me at whatever time, then she’d just not be ready for an hour and a half. So, we’d sit and watch the news.” I asked if it would be fair to say they were friends, but he said, “No. We were friendly but, no. You had to know your place. We got into an argument once because it was Sunday, and I was trying to watch The Simpsons. This was 18 years ago when I used to watch it every week. She was watching her news and I asked if I could put it on and she said, ‘No!’ There was no recording, and I was planning on being home by then to watch it and she was keeping me there because she was supposed to come in earlier. I asked if I could go into the other room to watch it and she was like, ‘I said turn it off!” Just in case Ari ever got confused and thought they might be friends, she was like, NAH!!! But none the less, there was no question, Ari was in Mitzi’s good favor. Ari agreed and said, “Yeah, she took to me for sure and she cared about me, and she always asked about me and she probably worked me harder than most people.” I remembered hearing Ari once tell the story about how comedians would try and sit next to her and talk with her when she was trying to watch a showcase and make notes, so Ari would have to sit next to her and be somewhat of a bodyguard so she could focus on the show without being distracted. I had to believe that this might caused some hard feelings or jealously aimed at Ari but he said no, “I couldn’t get ahead. I wasn’t getting ahead so who would be jealous? There was nothing I was getting out of it. I was at the lowest level and not getting passed. I remember Rannazzisi at some point was like, ‘She won’t pass you?’ and I was like ‘No.’ So he asked how many times I’ve showcased and at the time it was around 12 and he goes, ‘She’s just being a jerk at this point.’ And was like, ‘I don’t know. Maybe?” Mitzi’s repeated rejection was a hard pill for Ari to swallow but he offered some clarity on the subject during his latest appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Ari Shaffir’s latest appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience is my new, favorite podcast episode ever. There was laughter, there were tears and there was a chemistry that felt so natural Joe and Ari seemed more like brothers than friends. During this episode, Ari shared the spiritual experience he had while taking ayahuasca in Ecuador. He said that he walked away from his ayahuasca experience with the peace of knowing that all those years of Mitzi not passing him was for a purpose. It was because she really wanted to build him up so that he could withstand this industry for the long run. The caterpillar literally turns to mush before transforming into a butterfly and that is exactly what Mitzi was doing. She was beating him down until he became a more powerful, authentic and confident version of himself. Ari said, “We always thought the end goal was to become paid regulars but that was not really the end goal. She saw it with more context than we did. We couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Me, Rannazzisi, Steve Simeone, and Duncan, we always just wanted to be paid regulars. That was the next step so that’s all we saw and all we wanted, really badly. Getting passed was a big deal. It’s hard to explain that to anybody. It’s almost like your first kiss. Ya know? And she was almost like a drill sergeant beating it into you because it’s not about becoming a paid regular. It was about the long fucking journey of realizing who you are and what you can do on stage with a microphone and yes, if I didn’t get tougher, I would have just fucking quit so many times! I was so close to quitting so many times.” I asked what the closest he’s ever gotten to quitting was and he said, “When I had stage freight pretty badly after I left one time to go do a summer job at home. I was off stage for like two weeks and massive stage freight developed. I don’t know how, but I couldn’t get on stage. I’d drive all the way from Santa Monica to West Hollywood, then park my car and walk down to The Store. I was an employee, so I was allowed to do the employee spot. I’d walk right up to the door, then turn right around, walk back to my car and drive back to Santa Monica.” Thankfully, he didn’t quit and was able to get back on stage by deciding to go up and bomb on purpose. He said, “They were three-minute sets, so I said I was going to go up there and not say a word for three minutes. Just not talk at all. It can’t go well so I didn’t have any type of expectations and I wouldn’t be disappointed when it didn’t go well.” This reminded me of immersion therapy and Ari said, “Yeah, exactly. My friend’s a therapist and when people get embarrassed in public, he tells them to go buy one grape! It’s embarrassing but what do you care? It’s just a clerk in a supermarket. Tell them, ‘Please weigh it.’ It’s embarrassing but it’s the lowest level embarrassment, so you have to get over it.” But this was not the only time Ari had contemplated running away from comedy.
Ari then went on to speak with me about the traumatic experience of being ousted from the show he created and starred in, his baby, This is Not Happening. He said, “When they were blackmailing me for that show, at that point I had just come back from Southeast Asia, and I had just come back specifically to do the show. I was not ready to come back yet. I was having a good time. I walked back into it and managed to sell my special to Netflix. Then, my manager was like, ‘Well, we have to tell Comedy Central before you do that.’ And I was like, ‘That sounds like a bad idea. What if they get mad?’ She was like, ‘No. They won’t.’ And of course, they did. They got super mad and they were like, if you walk away we’ll keep the show going. Rogan offered to do some hosting and they said no. Segura and Kreischer offered, and they said no. At that point I was just going to leave. I was just gonna go on a flight and go back to where I was. I just wanted to run away. I was like, ‘You’re forcing me out on this?!’ And that’s the kind of shit Mitzi made me strong enough to handle. You just have to put your trust in people. They won’t always let you down, but sometimes they will.” For a man who lost his faith in God, Ari Shaffir has certainly come out the other side enlightened.
Ari Shaffir’s fearlessness and refusal to compromise his voice is the fabric of his content and everything he does. He puts creating authentic comedy that pushes boundaries, while doing no harm, at the forefront of his life and the evidence of this is always in his work. Ari has come full circle and is going back to the kind of stand-up he grew up listening to at sleepaway camp and became a paid regular performing under the watchful eyes of Mitzi Shore at The Comedy Store but he wouldn’t be “Ari the Great” if it weren’t for all of the valuable tools he’s picked up along the way.
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Sara Dahms
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