Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank

Vanessa Ragland came over to my rodent den of an apartment in LA and talked to me about her miscarriage. She was honest and open about the whole ordeal and it really gave me a nice look at one mother's experience. And don't worry, it's not all gloomy.

Stevie Ryan invited me over to her apartment to smoke pot and watch reality shows one day about a year ago. We ended up recording a podcast about introverts and then we recorded another one about our short lived relationship. Of course we meandered into all sorts of stuff but it was fun seeing two sides of a whole bunch of different scenarios. Catch Stevie on her own show on VH1 called Stevie TV.

Brendan Burns came to my LA garbage heap apartment to talk about his rock bottom. Brendan's rock bottom lasted for 3 years and while he was there he did A LOT of drugs. Especially psychedelic drugs. And they were not kind to him. 

Donovan Pee met me in my hotel room in Vancouver to talk about Heroin. Donovan was a heavy heroin user and lived on the streets of one of the most drug addicted blocks in North America. He was involved with the drug for decades and has only recently gotten away from it. It's a fascinating look at the life and exactly the kind of thing I like for this podcast.

John Caparulo had me over to his palatial estate to do a podcast and we spent most of it talking about poker. Cap was the reason I started playing poker at casinos. He introduced it to Steve Rannazzisi and me about 10 years ago and I caught the bug hard. We had some great times going down to the LA casinos late night after the Comedy Store was over. Hustler, Commerce, Hollywood Park, we hit them all. The last hour was just fun memories. So enjoy. And please enjoy an extra long introduction that has me venting about censorship in comedy.

Twitter

John Caparulo - http://twitter.com/johnCaparulo

Jamie Caparulo - http://twitter.com/Jamie_Caparulo

Ari Shaffir - http://twitter.com/AriShaffir

Jimmy Dore came by my slop haven of an apartment to tell me the truth about politics. I've never been very political, but lately I've started to become increasingly angrier about how little representation the average citizen has. Jimmy was always into the leftist side of things and he did a great job of explaining the problems with how things are run. And Mat Edgar joins me for the intro and outro to talk about Shroomfest and to share a few extra stealing stories that he forgot to mention on "Klepto."

Tom Rhodes and I met up at the Moontower Comedy and Oddity Festival and we talked about his vagabond lifestyle. Tom has no home. Every week he travels to a different location for standup comedy. He has no place to go back to. Just on and on and on forever. He sees every corner of the earth in his travels and it's really cool.

Chip Pope met me at the Comedy Store to talk about the time he spent in the closet. I know a lot of gay people, but very few who are gay but not open about it. As always with Chip, the talk moved to music as well. But most of it was about what it was like not having people (including the comics in the LA scene) know he was gay.

Mat Edgar and I talked about our shoplifting days on a trip back from San Diego. We both had pasts as thieves and this was a nice way to fill half our drive home. I forgot about how much I used to steal when I was little. I don't know how I never got caught. 

My father, Nat Shaffir, talked to me about his experience in the Holocaust as a young boy. My father rarely, if ever, shared any of this with us growing up, so I'm glad I got a chance to hear him say it. This was originaly posted on the Skeptic Tank feed on Deathsquad, but since a lot of people didn't know about it there, and being Yom Hashoah today, I thought it was a good oportunity to repost it. These stories are hard to digest at points but I think it's important enough to continue to listen despite any level of discomfort.