The guest
Moshe Kasher: Stand-up comedian, author, and podcaster raised by deaf parents between Oakland and an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community; got sober at 15 and wrote the memoir Subculture Vulture.
What this episode covers
Moshe Kasher and Joe Rogan range across an unusually wide set of subjects with little structure. They open on pool halls, hustlers and gambling, then move through genius-level outliers, vasectomies and birth control, hunting and animal intelligence, and a long stretch of medical horror stories about rogue doctors. The emotional core is Kasher's account of being a hearing 'gentile' inside the deaf community and the Hasidic world, and his detailed history of how sign language and American Sign Language were created. The back half drifts into disease (rabies, Spanish Flu, chronic wasting disease), the multiverse, Stephen Hawking, the Epstein island as an intelligence operation, and UFOs as interdimensional phenomena, closing on Kasher's book and audiobook.
Recommended on this episode
BookRecommendedISBN verified
American Cosmic
D.W. Pasulka
“I'll recommend book to people”
“but I'll recommend book to people it's called American Cosmic and it's essentially about this whole Flying Saucer”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
The Hustler
“it's a great movie”
“do you like um that the Hustler oh it's a great movie that's a good movie that's a great movie”— Moshe Kasher
MediaRecommended
The Queen's Gambit
Walter Tevis
“that's a great series that series is really good”
“he wrote the Queen's Gambit about that uh amazing chess player she was an orphan yeah that's a great series that series is really good”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Sound and Fury
“beautiful and fantastic documentary”
“have you ever seen the sound in the fury no it's a [ __ ] beautiful and fantastic documentary about C implants and the deaf Community”— Moshe Kasher
MediaRecommended
28 Days Later
“I do love that movie”
“that was the premise of uh 28 days later remember that movie they created one and gave it to chimps and The Chimps just biting people”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Poor Things
“poor things was great”
“Emma Stone is the best actor in the world I'm I'm on record now wow poor things was great”— Moshe Kasher
MediaRecommended
In the Name of the Father
“such a good [ __ ] movie he's so good”
“I just saw in the name of the father again have you seen that it's one of his earlier movies it's like an IRA story”— Moshe Kasher
MediaRecommended
Ancient Apocalypse
Graham Hancock
“it's amazing”
“I remember ancient apocalypse on Netflix it's amazing and it's very likely that that's there's physical evidence now”— Joe Rogan
The guest's own work
BookBy the guestISBN verified
Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes
Moshe Kasher
“there it is right there subculture vulture Memoir in scenes by mosha Casher available now did you do the audio book”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
BookReferencedISBN verified
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X
“what's like that dude in Malcolm X's autobiography the guy that like he ran all the numbers in his mind and he never forgot a single one”— Moshe Kasher
BookReferencedISBN verified
Boys and Sex
“she used to sit my brother and I down on Tuesday nights and read to us from a book called boys and sex”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
The Color of Money
Walter Tevis
“you know the color money is as well aren't they connected yes yeah same guy Walter Tas who also wrote the Queen's Gambit”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Unorthodox
“do you see unorthodox no it's a show on Netflix it it's about a really hardcore sect”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Dr. Death
“I listen to that Dr Death podcast do you ever hear that no it's about a guy who was a neurosurgeon”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Delirious
Eddie Murphy
“I mean I'd seen like Delirious or like I watched Janine's uh special and it but I didn't care”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
The Boxer
“he was really good in a movie called The Boxer it was about an IRA guy who got out of jail”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
There Will Be Blood
“I would not want to be around him during the There Will Be Blood movie no definitely not”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
The Last of the Mohicans
“Last of the micans was great too he was great he's great in everything”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Lincoln
“he had to be called Mr President on set of Lincoln including to like a the security guard there was like some older security guard”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Maestro
“two great Jewish Heroes he goes from Maestro to ep's Island well he played uh he's played a lot of people”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Fiddler on the Roof
“I would go cosplay as an extra from Fiddler on the Roof for 6 weeks a year”— Moshe Kasher
MediaReferenced
Doctor Zhivago
“so my cousins sound like exts from Dr jivago and my uncle sounds like a New Yorker like it's that weird”— Moshe Kasher
ProductReferenced
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Samsung
“the new Galaxy s24 Ultra comes out with AI and one of the features of AI is a translate”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Neuralink (Telepathy)
Neuralink
“the new product is called telepathy let a person control a phone or computer just by thinking”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Mad Dog 2020
Mogen David
“and then Mad Dog 2020 and Cisco those were the things that I drank Mad Dog 2020 is always a popular one”— Moshe Kasher
ProductReferenced
Old English
“we'd always have to go to a liquor store and he would get like a 40 ounce of what Old English something like that”— Moshe Kasher
ProductReferenced
St. Ides
“Micky's was for white boys I I didn't mess with that say eyes for for the real brothers in the room”— Moshe Kasher
ProductReferenced
Carlo Rossi
“Carlo Rossi because E40 had a a a song called top of the line wine Carlos Rossy”— Moshe Kasher
ProductReferenced
Mickey's
“say white uh Micky's was for white boys I I didn't mess with that say eyes for for the real brothers”— Moshe Kasher
Big reveals from this episode
- Joe explains UFC fighters are now banned from betting after a trainer allegedly tipped off bettors about fighter injuries.
- Moshe reveals he got sober at 15, first went to rehab at 13, after a childhood steeped in drugs and rave culture.
- Kasher tells the full origin story of sign language: a French priest seeing two deaf sisters sign and founding the first deaf school.
- He explains the deaf community's deep distrust of hearing people stems from hearing educators trying to stamp out signing.
- Kasher's mother got a cochlear implant that destroyed her balance, leaving her permanently wobbly and unable to get an MRI.
- His mother only learned language because his grandmother happened to take her shoes to a deaf cobbler.
- Joe recounts the first person to survive symptomatic rabies via an induced coma (the Milwaukee protocol).
- Kasher floats a Fermi Paradox theory that every civilization self-destructs at the same point in its 200-year industrial arc.
Worth remembering
- The word 'pool' comes from pooling money together; the game is actually called pocket billiards.
- Jews may have suffered less during the plague because ritual handwashing before bread predated germ theory.
- Every falcon a falconer owns is captured wild, then tamed by sitting with it for days in a dark room with meat.
- Fishermen kill caught octopuses by biting through the brain stem, after which the animal turns pink or white.
- American Sign Language is its own complete language, not a translation of English, and differs from British sign language.
- Laurent Clerc, brought from France, learned rudimentary English on the boat and co-founded the first American deaf school.
- Martha's Vineyard once had a genetic anomaly where one in 25 people was deaf, so nearly everyone signed.
- Stephen Hawking lived roughly 55 years with ALS though it usually kills within two years; by the end only his cheek muscles moved.
- The Spanish Flu got its name because Spain, not under wartime media embargo, was first to report it openly.
- A virus weakens over generations because not killing its host lets it spread to more people.
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