Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes by Moshi Kasher
Read by Moshi Kasher
Published: January 2024
Summary from Goodreads:
A riotous, whirlwind tour through deep American subcultures ranging from Burning Man to Alcoholics Anonymous, by the writer and comedian Moshe Kasher
After bottoming out, being institutionalized, and getting sober all by the tender age of fifteen, Moshe Kasher found himself “What’s next?” Over the ensuing decades, he discovered the a lot.
There was his time as a boy-king of Alcoholics Anonymous, a kind of pubescent proselytizer for other teens getting and staying sober. He was a rave promoter turned DJ turned sober ecstasy dealer in San Francisco’s techno warehouse party scene of the 1990s. For fifteen years he worked as a psychedelic security guard at Burning Man, fishing hippies out of hidden chambers they’d constructed to try to sneak into the event. As a child of deaf parents, Kasher became deeply immersed in deaf culture and sign language interpretation, translating everything from end-of-life care to horny deaf clients’ attempts to hire sex workers. He reconnects and tries to make peace with his ultra-Hasidic Jewish upbringing after the death of his father before finally settling into the comedy scene where he now makes his living.
Each of these scenes gets a gonzo historiographical rundown before Kasher enters the narrative and tells the story of the lives he has spent careening from one to the next. A razor-sharp, gut-wrenchingly funny, and surprisingly moving tour of some of the most wildly distinct subcultures a person can experience, Subculture Vulture deftly weaves together memoir and propulsive cultural history. It’s a story of finding your people, over and over again, in different settings, and of knowing without a doubt that wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be.
Confession:
One of the reasons I started doing the nonfiction challenge a couple of years ago, was to force myself not only to read more nonfiction, but to branch out into other nonfiction genres. Before starting the challenge, if I picked up a nonfiction book at all it was usually about a true crime. The last two years I have found some really good books that I probably wouldn’t have read if it wasn’t for the challenge.
Subculture Vulture is one of those books that would have never landed on my radar if it wasn’t for the challenge. Biography/Memoir is my least favorite nonfiction genre. Biographies, especially ones written about historical persons, just bore me to tears. But I am beginning to appreciate well written memoirs, especially if they are funny. I often found myself laughing not only out loud while listening to this audiobook, but laughing for almost the entire book. Ok, there are some very serious moments as well, but still a really funny book.
As the title suggests, the author split his memoir into six sections. Each section relates to some group that the author has belonged to either his whole life (deaf community and Judaism) or that he spent time with during parts of his life, (AA, Burning Man, Raves and Stand up Comic) You could maybe argue that not all of these are subcultures, but the author makes a good case for all of them.
The book starts out with the author joining AA at the young age of 15. He doesn’t really go into why or how he became an alcoholic at such a young age, but his experiences with the group were eye opening. He starts with a pretty thorough explanation of the history of AA which was fascinating. He then talks about his experiences with the group, but not only his weekly meetings, but the national side of it as well. Very interesting, but humorously told as well.
We then journey into the world of the Rave. Again we get a brief history of the Rave culture, which I really didn’t know was a thing. The author becomes totally engrossed with raves, which seems a bit counterintuitive to his being in AA, but somehow he makes it work. His interest and obsession with Raves, eventually leads him to Burning Man. If you’ve never heard of Burning Man, you need to look it up. It is a pretty wild party in the California desert that takes place every year. The history of how it got started was not something I knew and found fascinating. His stories about his experiences there were hilarious.
The section on Deaf culture and his life as a CODA (Child of a deaf adult) was both hilarious and at times very serious and kind of sad. The history of ASL was fascinating and I learned more about the deaf culture. Growing up signing led the author to be a deaf interpreter for many years and some of his stories from that aspect of his life were riotously funny.
The last two sections were a bit on the more serious side, especially the one where he talks about growing up jewish, and especially the summers he spent with his father as part of the Hasidic community in New York. His parents divorced when he was young and his father returned to his Hasidic upbringing. The author always felt like an outsider in his father’s community, while his mother was not very religious, so his religious upbringing was very hodgepodge. It was his father’s death that unfortunately brought him into the jewish community.
The section on how he became a standup comedian was fascinating. I learned quite a bit about the history of standup, including how the phrase ‘working blue’ came about. His journey into this world was interesting and it is here that he finally felt like he had found himself.
If you are looking for a fun, yet interesting memoir full of history about some subcultures told with a lot of heart and humor, this is one that you might want to give a chance. I have never heard of this author or seen his comedy, but I will be taking a look at some of his videos after reading this book.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 