AND HERE’S MODI
AND HERE’S MODI is an inside look at the man behind the microphone. Hosted by comedian, Modi (@modi_live), AHM features a raw and unfiltered side of the comedian rarely seen on stage. He always finds the funny as he navigates the worlds of comedy, trending topics, his personal life and spirituality. AHM is co-hosted by Periel Aschenbrand (@perielaschenbrand) and Leo Veiga (@leo_veiga_).
AND HERE’S MODI
Donny Moss
Episode 102: Animal rights activist Donny Moss joins Modi and Periel to discuss the tradition of Kaporos. Follow Donny Moss at @theirturn.
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Welcome to. And here's Modi. And we're back. And here's Modi. Wow, he's such a great guest today. I'm so excited. I don't even know how to begin the introduction of our guest. He is the reason I do stand-up comedy. He and I met when we both moved into the city. Well, he was already in the city. He went to Columbia University, I went to BU. We moved into the city. Our first apartments were in the same building and we met and became friends right away, like to Jews, same age ta-da-da. We used to go on walks to eat yogurt. We also. We were. Our friendship was such a strong friendship because we had so much in common. We didn't want to drink, we didn't want to be in loud bars, we didn't want to be in. We used to go to what was the name of that club, roxy, the Roxy, and sit outside and watch the people coming in and out rather than go in.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile meanwhile.
Speaker 1:meanwhile, at 45 years old, I realized how much fun it was inside, right. But Don and I were like what are we doing tonight? I don't know, let's go to Roxy. We sat out there so people coming in and out stoned high drunk and we never went in. We went and got frozen yogurt and went home.
Speaker 3:Okay, first of all, what's his name? Are you guys?
Speaker 1:Donnie Moss. I'm about to introduce him. He's my friend, donnie Moss. And then when I was working at Merrill Lynch, I would come home and we would hang out with other friends and I would do imitations of the secretaries I worked with and Donnie said do this on stage? I go what stage? He said stand up comedy. I'd never been to a comedy club and he organized my first show and it was at Stand Up New York, which was around the corner from where we lived. We were on 79th and Columbus, I was on 78th and Broadway and he made the first night happen and that was it. Since then I've been doing stand up comedy.
Speaker 3:That is insane. I mean, did you have any background? How did you know you recognized something that he didn't even recognize in himself?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you must have known that you were a funny person, right? Because I'm sure you were always making people laugh, but no one had ever said to you you should be a stand up comedian. And you and I were spending so much time together and I was, when I wasn't apologizing to whoever you were insulting, I was laughing. I mean, we were always laughing. Yeah, you know. I have to just tell one quick anecdote. You know, modi said we used to go for yogurt. We would walk on weeknights after work. We would walk to this yogurt place about 15 blocks away on Columbus Avenue and we would get, oh, and speaking of the yogurt, modi would have them put sprinkles at the bottom and the middle and the top, because he thought every layer, every bite needed to have sprinkles in it. I mean, so everything was silly and fun and funny and everybody sort of loved him, but we would.
Speaker 2:The reason I was saying that he was, you know, I kind of had to apologize from. I don't know if you remember this. We were walking in the street and you saw Matt Leblanc, the guy from Friends, and oh, look, the friend. The friend, like Modi, didn't know to like sort of sort of be discreet and he pointed at him and I'm like, oh God, I'm so sorry he just got to this country. I mean, he never even like 30 years, but yeah, but, but yeah. So I said you are the funniest person I've ever met. You've got to get on stage and you know what he doesn't talk about. I don't know if you've ever talked about this is the fact that he went up on stand at Stand Up New York. He killed the first day.
Speaker 3:Oh, he talks about that Okay.
Speaker 1:And I was on a night with all open micers who had no, who are horrible. Most of us also didn't care about being a stand up comic. I was doing this for fun. They were like, oh my God, this is my dream, I have to kill. And they just sucked. And then I went on and I had a great set, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:We didn't even know it was called a set at the time. Yeah, we had no idea and so. But what was so remarkable and I didn't know anything about the stand up world either, but was that within a few months, modi was performing at all the big clubs. He never had to do what so many comics have to do as they're climbing the right to the top, which is barking and doing bringer shows. I mean, he didn't have to. You paid your dues because you had to host late at night at the comedy cellar, but there were comics who would have killed at your stage at that stage in their career to be able to do what you were doing.
Speaker 3:How did you know how to even set up a comedy show, though? Like how did you know? You went to the club and you said, like I have a friend, because usually they do, I'll tell you exactly how he did it.
Speaker 1:He went to the club and said I have a friend who's very funny. How do I get him on stage? And he said you have to bring five people and we'll give him six minutes. So he brought I believe it was Eric Ruthius. Really, how do you remember? Yeah, I remember the table.
Speaker 1:Donny has a pack of friends from college. From college, it's like his pack of friends, straight people and their kids. I performed one of their weddings and, yeah, and he brought this crew. He was like come with me to Modi's thing and we went. I went up there, I was in a suit because I came from work and I remember that night, like it was yesterday, the club looked like a dump. It was such a dump but they sat right when you come in with the doors and I went up and we had the best time and I was on such a high, Right, I was on such a high and Carrie Hoppin, who was the owner, came to me and said you should stick with this and start to write your stuff. Wow, yeah, but Donny made that happen.
Speaker 2:But the act outs all came very naturally to you. You know he didn't have, you didn't have right away. Start up with setups and punchlines. I don't think I was doing huge characters.
Speaker 1:Right, I just opened my mouth and pay and it was a very that it was these over the top A Latin lady, a gay secretary, a Russian something, or else an Italian waiter, a Jamaican woman who had a boss on the subway?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the aerobics aerobics, the aerobics.
Speaker 1:I had this aerobics bit. I used to jump. You remember when step classes were in? Yeah, I remember the whole thing about step classes. I don't remember any of them and most of the material I could not do today, that's for sure. Donny thought I shouldn't be doing a lot of it back then. Donny was my Leo back then. You can't say that. You can't say that.
Speaker 2:I wish I could remember that, but right now, thinking all of that stuff would be funny today and you're saying that now you're the one who's saying you can't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you crazy Doing imitations of no, but put the lines. I don't remember Conno and Mira, I remember all those. Anyway, it was an act, it was over the top. So I was closing shows at the comic strip, I was closing shows at these other clubs and then, finally, in April of 94, estee passed me At the comedy seller. Yeah, and I was.
Speaker 2:I was closing the shows at the strip and it was and he was brand new and I don't think either of us appreciated how quickly you're no idea. Yeah, we had no idea that anyone else who did it?
Speaker 3:Now are you getting a percentage of all of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Modi sends me a monthly check.
Speaker 1:No, just being here is thanks enough, no, donnie. And so now, what was going on with Donnie at that moment? Donnie was, donnie, was Donnie's so smart? I? He's going to say he's not, he's one of the smartest people I know. It's a miracle that everybody in my life is so smart and I am the dumbest person. I'm ridiculous. No, but it's, it's and and and his husband even smarter. But Donnie was working in in. He couldn't have hated it more. He was working in for pharmaceutical companies and doing their PR and and then PR companies that did pharmaceuticals. He was jumping back and forth and back and forth, because when he worked here they would say, please, we'll hire you. And then he worked here and another pharmaceutical company will hire you. He could have been today the biggest in pharmaceutical company PR in the world. He would rather smash his head into a moving bus. Literally, he could not have hated his job, even ever more, and it was my calling for sure Right Now. So then he thought he was going to be a chef.
Speaker 2:Remember that I went to culinary school while doing the pharmaceutical culinary school because he was going to do that and that was a hot minute for Donnie and you and another friend came to the graduation dinner where I cooked foie gras and no, if I knew then what I know now, yes, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:No, Full on dementia. You're kidding me.
Speaker 2:You don't remember coming to a graduation dinner.
Speaker 1:I remember that like it was yesterday. I remember where I sat and it wasn't foie gras, it was the ankle of the as a book. Oh, I see he put this piece of garbage in front of me. It looked like. I tell you what it looked like. You know, when gefilter fish comes in, that jelly with a piece of flesh next of a piece of meat next to it, he served that in front of me. I looked at the people we were with. I was with Amy Blyer, I remember. I remember it was yesterday. This thing's, you remember, and Donnie's, they had the chef thing and the clogs and the clogs and he had the whole thing and he serves me this thing. Go, you're kidding. What else are we having? And they're talking about how they did it and the heat of the oven was so I go, what is this? It was the grossest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:I don't think I ate it either by the way, you didn't eat it either. No, you cooked it. I don't remember I can, although I you know. I don't know if you still eat this, but I don't think you do. But Modi at that time was only eating the chicken, the salad, with a grilled chicken on top.
Speaker 1:Not everything, nothing. It's in my rider. Oh OK, it's in my rider.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you were the wrong person to invite to that event. She doesn't. What are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm glad you were there but you didn't like my friends First meal at culinary school. I'm the wrong person to invite to that meal. You should have ordered a pizza or something. You should have made pizza in the little pizza ovens they had.
Speaker 3:I saw you've never met anyone less interested in food Like he'll eat, because he knows To eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know, I wish I could eat to live instead of live to eat.
Speaker 1:You know, if we are doing the past back Donnie, when we this is what we're talking about we were 2345. This is when we this Donnie could eat five meals a night. He could walk into a restaurant, have a full meal. We'd walk by a pizza place and go that smells amazing, two slices. Walk down further somewhere and have a hot dog at Papaya Papilla, whatever it was. He could eat with. No, absolutely no. He had this little body always built like a, like abs and this and no, and always. And then it changed and I came to a screeching cold.
Speaker 2:Because I can remember one day where he said oh Donnie, you really let yourself go. Oh, so I took the empanada out of my mouth, and actually you're the one who introduced me to intermittent fasting, and so it's been four years now since you and Leo came over and we had dinner and you said I, you were intermittent fasting at the time I said I'm going to try that and it's been four years since I basically quit Stop eating breakfast and it really helps yeah, really helped me, donnie is stopping to eat does help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not eating. And then Donnie's trajectory. Oh, sat word, um, it's good.
Speaker 2:It's good enough.
Speaker 3:I mean it's fine, but not an SAT word. It's not an.
Speaker 1:SAT word. It's an SAT word. It's a trig. Trigonometry is in it. Um Donnie became vegan.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know how everybody, just like I said to him, I threw him the line hey, try intermittent fasting.
Speaker 1:And like we've, of course, two weeks later finished with intermittent fasting and then he stayed for four years with it.
Speaker 1:It was that time where, like Netflix had nonstop documentaries about going vegan and not eating meat, and and Donnie watched all of them and memorized them and told us all we have to watch him and he caught on to. Then, of course, you watch one of those documentaries and you feel like a dare to become vegan, and but Donnie kept with it and really feels the anguish and the pain of the animals and it is like Donnie is when I do something good for the Jewish community, there's nothing but thank you. When we're so appreciative and thank you, donnie is helping people, animals, and it can't be thanked like they don't. They can't thank him when he, when he protests and when he does, or I mean we're going to talk about what he does. One of the main things he made a movie called Blinders, which was about the horse-drawn carriages in New York City, one of the most ridiculous things that exists in our city, the torture that these animals go through, and every civilized city in the world almost banned it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been banned from a lot of cities. I mean the idea that we have horses pulling, you know 19th century carriages through the congested streets of Midtown, manhattan, and we've all seen it, because it's right in front of the Plaza Hotel and all through the streets of Midtown. It's so anachronistic, it's so inhumane, it's so unsafe, but the industry is politically connected. But, yeah, I made a documentary film called Blinders the truth behind the tradition in 2008 on a cell phone.
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't a cell phone, but it wasn't. It wasn't with all this fancy equipment. But I didn't when I got, when I bought the camera at B&H photo I, when I bought the camera, I wasn't thinking I'm making a full. I thought I was going to make some short videos to help the activists who were trying to raise awareness and educate the public about why this was cruel. But one interview led to another and that was contacted by people who witnessed accidents and then veterinarians who work on horses and like it just turned into a whole documentary. And I got lucky because Alec Baldwin saw an avanteur to host a screening, the New York premiere, and so it got more attention than it otherwise would have. And now you could I post. I uploaded it to YouTube. You can see for free.
Speaker 1:Well, what you once had? An incident where one of your clips on YouTube that had a millions of followers, a click was taken off and it was put on again.
Speaker 2:Oh, so in that, was that the horse drawn thing or no? No, in 2013,.
Speaker 1:I don't get into the politics of it, but he had a miracle. I saw a miracle happen with Donnie Moss and he would never acknowledge it. He isn't he's not like, like into that, but he had a video that was on a project he was working on. That was. It had hundreds of thousands of views, if not in the millions of views, right, Happened a couple of times.
Speaker 2:I mean the one. The one video that has the most views about 10 million views is about a dog in Liberia. I was in Liberia visiting a friend and she rescued a dog in like who was dying in the street and I documented that dog's recovery and the dog was sent to the US and is living with a family in Denver and so that video I didn't know that was going to happen, but went viral. I've had videos taken down but one came back up. One was politics.
Speaker 1:It was a big political thing and it was taken down and then, through just Asking favors from people who were in the in YouTube world or whatever, it was put back up with all of the with not like a brand new, like it was a miracle. It was a miracle and he'd never. That's the machine energy. That was a machine energy moment you had there, anyway. And then so the blindest thing was like, all of a sudden, your friend is hosting a movie that he made on a camera, on like a little thingy camera, and host and and had interviewed these people who, some of them, were really nasty and you could tell, just like that one that lived on Central Park South, the gay guy, yeah, who ended up posting a fundraiser for Ted Cruz.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and that was that guy's downfall he was canceled.
Speaker 1:He was canceled and then it was just impressive and it wasn't like a phase. He stayed with it and he really is with these animals and his Instagram account is amazing.
Speaker 2:It's, I can't spell, it, it's all my social media platforms are at their turn, as if it's not your turn or your turn, it's their turn. Right, the animals turn. The animals turn Because, you know, and I named it that, and I probably wouldn't pick that name today but at the time when I was speaking out on behalf of animals, everybody would say, well, what about the children? Or what about you know, what about hunger and what about cancer and what about? And? So I'm like, well, when is it going to be their turn? You know, there's never going to be a good time for animals, so that's why I named it that At the sort of the start of my animal rights.
Speaker 3:So I don't eat meat, I'm a vegetarian. But most of my issue is that it's the industry Like if you go to like an organic farm in like Italy, you're getting like a very different experience than you are with the disgusting meat industry of America. Right, is that part of it? Sure, is that not?
Speaker 2:Well, so, first of all, 90 over 99% of the animals and animal byproducts that we eat come from factory farms, these animal factories, where they're just treated like commodities before they're sent off to the slaughterhouse. So you know people who say I only eat free range, cage free, free, all of that stuff. These are marketing terms, so bullshit. Anytime an animal rights organization goes in with cameras and does an investigation, the truth is revealed, which is that they're just animals were raised in factories, and raised is generous. They're Tormented for their whole lives in these factories before going off to the slaughterhouse.
Speaker 2:But even if animals did have a nice life and that could never happen given how many we eat I mean a slaughterhouse is such a horrible place. Nothing humane happens in a slaughterhouse and it was footage of inside of slaughterhouses that I saw back in 2005 that I had never seen it before and it's all sort of well hidden. I mean, the industry doesn't want you to see these things, right, because I know that people like me would see it and say, oh my god, here I said I love animals and and then I'm just sitting down three times a day to eat animals who are slaughtered in these horrific ways. And so there's basic, you know, there's, there's, no, there's no, your audience.
Speaker 1:We got the wrong podcast, but we were gonna. I wanted to speak to you about one of the biggest things that you work on, um, which is the caporus. Yeah, so you know what that is right now what's caporus?
Speaker 3:How do?
Speaker 1:you not know, caporses? You've never heard of that. No, she's. She's why we keep on the podcast. It's just so in case we something Jewish comes up. She's like what does that mean?
Speaker 2:Well, to be fair, I mean most secular Jews have never heard of caporus.
Speaker 1:I also what was saying the name of it. But you know that Before Yom Kippur a tradition there is to take a chicken, swing it over your head three times, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, I have heard of that, that's caporus Caparot a live chicken a live chicken and then the chickens killed. It could also be done with money. So in the Jewish community, in the Jewish tradition, before Yom Kippur is Customary to take a chicken or money and swing it over your head and you say these prayers and then the chicken is killed and it's supposed to be that your sins go into the chicken and the chicken is then slaughtered and and is, and your sins are kind of absolved, or it's at least your, your, you, you acknowledge that you have sins and it's you're doing something, acknowledging your sins. Now, in my opinion, back in the old days, when you were in the Shtetl, in you know the old and a Tefka, or if you were in Morocco, on your farm, whatever there, you'd go into the yard, you take a chicken, you cut its head off and then you eat it and then. But Now it's become an industry and it's become Scary.
Speaker 1:They have these trucks that are and I'm basically doing your cell, but I wanted this is the way I view it and you Tell me if it's wrong they have these trucks that are brought in a day or two before the caporus is done and the chickens are, are filed and and and stuck in these. They can't spread their wings like crates. They're like crates, that's right. They said crates and you know. And their defecation goes on to one another and it's really, really sad. And people don't see that. People don't see what how the chicken gets to the caporus. So when you're in your Jewish neighborhood and you go to where caporus is done, you don't see the truck, you just see the what, all, what the truck has gone through in those few days before getting there. They're not being fed and not being watered, they're just tortured in this little thing and then you're grabbing it and swinging it and then killing it. It's a horrible thing, it's it's a horrible thing.
Speaker 1:First let me finish. And so they have them during during the season of caporus, before Yom Kippur, all over Brooklyn in the Hasidic neighborhoods. They have them also in Long Island and not so religious neighborhoods. Some people do it most, most don't. I'm gonna continue on.
Speaker 1:Just Donnie always asked me for information about it. And what do you think and how? And did you know that they can do money instead of the chicken? And and I always told him, you, the the Orthodox Jewish community, does not need you to educate them on how to practice their religion. They may need some education in what's happening with the chicken until it gets to where it is.
Speaker 1:And I always told Donnie, you know it's insane because in one of the neighborhoods that he fights at the most, which is Crown Heights, a Neighborhood that's very dear to me because it's the Lubavitch headquarters and where Jewish tunnels were invented, they do this there. And you know there's also a Jewish museum there for children, and I don't I haven't been in a long time, but one of the exhibits in that museum was when Moses Before Moses. But how did God know Moses should be Moses? He saw his kindness to an animal. That's like one of the reasons Moses was Moses and that was one of the exhibits they had at this museum and then, like, right across the street, is where they do caparis, these poor chickens and it's, and, and it could be. And I remember one of the people told me that they heard Donnie's thing and they told me that they, instead of going to the corner and doing that, they did it in their home. With money you can do. With money, you can. It's same, it's the same.
Speaker 1:Mitzvah, there's nothing in the Torah that mandates using a chicken right, and so just a tradition, yeah, and it's a very sad thing and I, if I can give any plug to anybody, if you do do caparis, don't, don't take money and swing it over your head and you it's in the sitter. Any art scroll sitter will show you exactly what to do. It's easier, less chickens are tortured and it's one thing you can do. I'm not saying go vegan, but I am one thing. This is one thing you can definitely do. Am I right or wrong?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, you know and it's just so. I don't think that most of the particular practitioners of Kaporus understand, first of all, that chickens are sentient, that they're living beings, if they can feel pain and suffer just like us, right? But they also don't realize that not only are they brought into New York City in these flatbed trucks, but they're also in many cases kept in crates for up to several days With no food and water. So they're intensively confined, they there. They have no protection from weather extremes and they get sick. And we found over the years thousands of dead crates, mixed dead animals I'm sorry, dead chickens mixed in with the living in these crates. So there's also a big health issue here and there've been bird flu outbreaks in New York City. It's just a matter of time before bird flu is transmitted from an animal to a human. In that wet market, live animal market setting right when you think of how COVID emerged, probably in that wet market in China you have humans physically handling live animals.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you heard in the past podcast of ours, perial declared herself as a Republican, so that means we never discussed that, by the way. And what happened with that crazy? So you for sure it was the wet markets of China, for you, right.
Speaker 3:I am first of all going to throw up. That is the most disgusting story I have, maybe. It gets grosser In my bite what is going on here with millions of disgusting dead chickens. Like what is this insanity? First of all, that is so foul.
Speaker 2:Literally and figuratively.
Speaker 1:Donny's just stand up also. By the way, it was very funny.
Speaker 3:I'm not kidding. That is so gross. Why are people doing that? Are they eating these chickens after this also?
Speaker 2:You know what? There are probably 30 of these pop-up slaughterhouses that are erected, by the way, on public streets and residential neighborhoods without permits. If I want to have a street fair on my block, I have to get a permit with sign off from the Department of Transportation, department of Health One second, I don't think and again I am with you 100% I don't eat meat.
Speaker 3:I think the whole thing is disgusting. I think the way that animals are treated is revolting. It is like taking poison energy into your body. That's my personal position. I don't think people care about how animals are treated, because in America at least, if you go to the supermarket to buy meat, in most cases there is intentionally a very big divide of what it looks like where you buy a nice plastic wrapped piece of meat versus the animal itself. You don't know because you don't go to supermarkets.
Speaker 1:I've been to the supermarket. I don't go to supermarkets.
Speaker 2:They don't sell the chickens or the pigs with the heads on them, if there's a disconnect between what you're buying.
Speaker 1:I want to focus this podcast, not on that, if you don't mind. I would like to help with people just not doing kapparas.
Speaker 3:But doing it with money, giving them another option, is a very nice alternative, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think that's what the focus should be. If you don't mind, I just think when you have too many things on the table talking about them, nothing gets done. But if we can just focus on the fact that, even though we're so far away from the next yom kippur, we have pese, we have a poor yom kippur and then, before we get to yom kippur, but let's plant the seed let's plant the seed and we'll bring you back on before yom kippur. Just let's lose kapparas Do the money.
Speaker 3:Why not do the money?
Speaker 2:This is a business for a lot of people. These are concessions that people set up once a year.
Speaker 3:How much does it cost to buy one of these things? The?
Speaker 2:chickens are anywhere from like $5 to $10. Maybe I think it varies from concession to concession. But there are these pop-up slaughterhouses and these kapparas concessions set up throughout Williamsburg and Crown Heights and Borough Park, midwood, other neighborhoods. It's a big business for people once a year. That's part of what we're competing against People. I guess their rabbis say, once again we're going to use chickens as kapparas and they listen to their rabbis. I do think that we've gotten through to some people over the years. That's good.
Speaker 2:I have had people Hasidim, come up to me and say look, I agree with you. If this was a shtetl in Poland, then it's exactly what you just described. But most people are just doing it because it's part of the tradition. The rabbi tells them to. As soon as the rabbi say this has been too industrialized, it's too unhealthy, it's too risky because of a disease transmission, like in this wet market setting, keep in mind you've got thousands upon thousands of individuals, including young children and the elderly, physically handling live animals who are mixed in, who are sick, visibly sick, with respiratory disease, because they're mouth breathing and they're mixed in crates with dead animals. There is going to be a time where someone gets a version of bird flu that could be transmitted among humans and it's going to spread like wildfire, like COVID a bird flu, before public health authorities are even aware of it. It's got to happen.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it won't. I'm just saying in this if we can do anything to help people listening to us, it's we have ultra ultra-dioxylist and not religious at all who's like what the hell? What money are they talking about? It's what money? What kapparas? What are you guys even talking about? And the religious ones listen. This is if. I don't think that doing kapparas on the street and whatever you go is Mashiach energy, because it's just not. It's not right. It's just there's suffering there and you don't need nothing needs to be suffering for you. Listen, I've tried going vegan. I've tried going vegetarian. I try. It's here, it's there. We try not to, but we end up eating meat. We're on the road. We go to a kosher restaurant. We're sushi, it's, it's, it's not. We try that's a very important thing to at least try and it causes less things to happen. You going vegan completely, for us was just not an option, but for some people it is. Some people it's a health issue. But if I can do one thing with this episode of this podcast no more kapparas.
Speaker 3:Also, the less meat you eat, the better. Every time you don't eat meat, it's better than eating meat right.
Speaker 2:Perfection is the enemy of good. There's no question about it.
Speaker 2:But I will say I will say, back in 2005, when I saw a video called meet your meat and made the switch to a plant-based diet and a V and adopted a vegan lifestyle, it was a lot harder back then than it is now. I mean, now we have all of these substitutes not all necessarily health food, but all of the things that you think you can't imagine giving up their alternatives now, and they're delicious and they're almost indistinguishable, so I don't feel like I'm even making a sacrifice anymore. And when you think about how much better it is for your health to follow a plant-based diet, as many whole foods as possible, whole foods, plant-based diet how much better it is for the planet right, because nothing is more destructive than animal agriculture and I mean, of course fossil fuels are horrible too, and of course it's better for the animals and there's no, I'm sure, masiya, energy, thank you Involved in a slaughterhouse.
Speaker 3:And what about your husband? Is he a vegan too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the crazy thing is when we met, he was a lawyer for one of the biggest meat and dairy companies in the world I'm not going to name names because I'm not sure if we're supposed to, but and I was working at the time for a pharmaceutical company that made drugs to to help the people who were getting sick from eating the meat and dairy that his company was selling. So now we're both neither of us work for a meat and dairy or pharmaceutical company where both plant based vegans.
Speaker 1:I will say something. I take a moment to talk about your husband, who probably should come on the podcast as well. He's Jim McNazby. Like I said, my mom calls him the lawyer from Harvard. He's a Harvard lawyer and he worked for these insane gigs. He had a chief counselor of craft food and chief counselor of something in your you in London for a hot minute with him. What were you there?
Speaker 1:I'm sure a big global insurance company, global Marsh, was called Marsh McClellan Still call that and he was their chief lawyer of this huge insurance company coming from food. It's because the way he thinks he knows how to fix problems and now and he is Parkinson's and he now is the is a chief counselor for the Michael Fox Foundation.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And besides that, though, he is, which is real machine, when somebody's diagnosed with Parkinson's has a strong God forbid. They call him and he speaks to them and he gives him that like it's going to be OK. Here's the options. Look at here, look at there. And he's very calm, his voice is very, very he talks very light and and it's and he he now left that huge world of being whatever kind of lawyer he could be and he's working and really helping, helping the world, helping create machine energy through through the Michael J Fox Foundation.
Speaker 3:It's a great foundation. I've worked with them a few times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing it's so. They have advanced. You know Parkinson's far more than the government.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I want to again, just again, this podcast. If anything you take away, just let's not do caparis with chicken, let's get back to Donnie. Donnie for a hot man, I forgot you, just stand up comedy.
Speaker 3:No, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, he had some funny jokes.
Speaker 2:It was one I was so flattered when you took, when you took one of them.
Speaker 1:I took one of his jokes. I go listen, you stop them coming up. I'm taking one of his jokes. He had a joke and, oh, if I can remember it, I don't do it, but it's a great joke for wherever you are in the world. You can just ask somebody in the audience what's the worst neighborhood in this area and they'll tell you Compton in LA or Riverville or wherever in some part of Detroit that you never heard. And just get the name, a specific name, and you can say. You can say I was in Compton. Wow, the cops are there. They're really tough. I saw one peeing behind the squad car. No, I saw one peeing behind the police car and she was even squatting. That was the joke.
Speaker 2:That was my opener. I knew I could get a laugh right away.
Speaker 1:It was a great joke and she wasn't even squatting. I love that joke. He had other funny jokes, Very Wendy Lieberman type of humor Pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, pomp, like in a flat affect at the bomb. It was very funny and you just. It was too shleppy for you, it was too much running around right, it was a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, we moved to London and then all of them, none of my jokes worked there. It was, like you know, I was doing jokes about things that like just the Olive Garden as an example, things that they had no idea about. So I had my 10 or 15 minutes when I moved there and none of it worked. And also, there was smoking in London at the time and I just said, you know what, I'm going to put this on hold till I got back and I just never took it up again. And my husband at home with Parkinson's disease, who needed help at the time and thankfully he's doing better now, and so I just I didn't take it up again. I sometimes miss it at horrible stage fright, but I love that feeling.
Speaker 1:No, but he's, he. At his husband's birthday party he grabbed the mic and killed it Killed. I forgot that speech you made at Jim's birthday party. So funny, it was just great. Anyway, I, I, it's. One of the blessings of my life is having Donnie Moss as a close, close friend. He was at the 92nd Street, why? And? And he's helping the world Mashiach, creating Mashiach energy through animal rights. Like I said, if you can do not do Kaparis, that's if we can do one thing with chickens, thank you, don't do Kaparis with chicken. On that note, I want to thank our sponsors.
Speaker 3:Yes, oh yes, if you're going to eat meat, if you're going to eat meat?
Speaker 1:all right, very, enjoy yourself, Enjoy yourselves, enjoy it and have the best quality and type of meat from A and H provisions the literally the clean packaged. Well, I don't know what happened before, but it's it's. If you're going to eat meat and our people here are going to eat meat, then this is not going to change anything to vegan. We're hoping this episode just stops doing Kaparis with chicken. But we, our friends, are, sponsor us and they're amazing. A and H provisions website wwwkosherdogsnet.
Speaker 3:Sorry, Donnie.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is a. This is probably a tough one. It's a tough one and, of course, whites and Luxembourg, the law firm that not only does Well, they do good, very philanthropic. Or the Luxembourg is the front of the podcast, been on the podcast and whites and Luxembourg is definitely the attorneys you want behind you and their website is whites and Luxcom, or just whites Lux. Yeah, so how can people reach you and help you and be a part of what you're doing?
Speaker 2:You can find me at their turnnet and on all the social media platforms at their turn their turn and the there is spelled T, h, I. E R E I was close.
Speaker 1:I knew it wasn't the.
Speaker 2:E R E. Right, that's right, and I knew it wasn't the one. The other one with the. We know you just got here from Israel a couple years ago. I remember when you were coming up with the name.
Speaker 1:I was bothering you. They were there. Remember Whose turn is it? Whose turn is it? I couldn't get it down, but he's almost like a one man operation and you should definitely branch out and if anybody wants to help, reach out to him. He's, he's, it's real, he. He's a great thing, he gives, he gives it with a hundred percent and periel. This is going to air before or after Paramount, probably the week of let's say that you have shows coming up.
Speaker 1:We have shows coming up. I don't know if this is before or after the Paramount Theater. Watch me do this without Leo. I'm going to give you myself a shakaych. I'm at the Paramount Theater in Huntington, long Island, on the 15th and the 18th. Tickets are almost sold out. There might be one or two left by now. Then we go to San Diego at the Balboa Theater, and that is on the 20, on the no Boston. Now, without Leo, I don't know. I don't know how I'm doing Vody livecom.
Speaker 3:No, let me alone.
Speaker 1:I can do this. Boston. I'm going to be in Boston at 28th and 29th of February. A few tickets left in each show. And then San Diego, the the third of March. Two shows, a matinee and an evening show, and then at the improv. That will totally sold out, never mind the improv in in Hollywood. And then we have St Louis and Orlando and Dallas and Denver and all places in Pennsylvania. The Kennedy Center sold out. But what's most important is Mody livecom. Get tickets for yourself, for friends, be the friend that brings the friends to the comedy show. That's machine energy, making your friends laugh and what else.
Speaker 3:You're going to be in Royal Oak Michigan.
Speaker 1:Royal Oak, Michigan. Yes, which is by Detroit. You're going to be in Montclair, new Jersey, on March 17 shows I think are sold out, but they may not be Mody livecom. Just go to Mody livecom, say hi. We love all your feedback. Again, thank you to A and H sponsoring us, and also whites and Luxembourg. And thank you, donnie Moss, for being here today and making me be a stand up comedian. You can definitely say it's because of me You're doing stand up.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I mean, chances are you'd be doing it anyway by this point, but thank you and I'm happy to come back every week for the rest of my life. Yeah.