L.A. comedian Moshe Kasher just cleaned his composting toilet. He says that makes him a “true off-grid Oregonian.”
The podcaster, actor and author is prepping his family’s RV, about to embark on a Pacific Northwest tour with his wife, standup Natasha Leggero, live-taping their podcast, The Endless Honeymoon, in several cities.
That tour stops at Oregon Country Fair July 12. Then Leggero and Kasher are back in town for a three-night stand-up comedy run July 17 through 19 at Olsen Run Comedy Club & Lounge in Eugene.
And what’s Leggero doing while Kasher is on toilet duty?
“Looking for a way out,” Leggero says in a phone call with Eugene Weekly, but that’s kind of their schtick. Leggero and Kasher are established names in comedy: Kasher, mischievous, chatty and manic; Leggero, the straight person, dry and cutting, forever over it.
Endless Honeymoon is a comedy-hybrid call-in advice show, but on tour, they’re doing things differently.
Musician and comedian Reggie Watts, Leggero and Kasher’s friend and OCF regular, will be their special guest at the Fair live-taping.
Kasher and Leggero will perform comedy, chat with Watts and then, Kasher says, “We bring up a couple who are seeking our advice.”
And, once on stage, “We give them our advice-slash-make fun of their life.”
Then, he adds, “We are doing our version of The Dating Game, bringing people up on stage: bachelor number one, two and three,” like the classic TV game show. The bachelors and bachelorettes will ask each other questions, with the respondents out of view.
At Olsen Run, Kasher says they’ll perform half-hour standard standup sets each, and then together, before they bring audience members up on stage, “and have fun with them.”
Joking aside, Leggero adds, the PNW is “so beautiful this time of year. I’m excited to go.”
Kasher and Leggero’s 7-year-old daughter is along for the trip, and they hope to show her some sights along the way — at least enough to get her to look up from her iPad, a familiar dilemma for parents these days.
“We’ve been driving through the most beautiful forest you’ve ever seen in your life for the last two hours,” Kasher says, forecasting the scene. “Would you like to look up for two seconds to see it?”
Kasher’s a festival guy who has been to Fair before. Leggero’s a newbie, but despite her glampy on-stage vibes, Leggero camps and says she likes a festival as long as there’s live music, unlike Burning Man. Kasher assured her Fair checks that box.
So, how did the Fair gig come about?
“Under great duress,” Kasher quips.
“I did fight him on it for several months,” Leggero responds.
Kasher adds, “The only thing I had to do was convince my wife, who barely wants to be in the woods, to go into the woods with thousands of the strangest contact-improvisers and psychedelic tie-dye top hat wearing freaks she’s ever met — and it worked!”
But it took Jason Mantzoukas, an actor and comedian who’s also been to Fair, to seal the deal. (Big names in entertainment like Leggero, Kasher, Watts, and Mantzoukas, all OCF fans — has Fair gone Hollywood?)
According to Kasher, “Mantzoukas, at a wedding, pushed her over the edge. He’s like, no matter how weird it gets, it’ll be memorable. And that is what we’re looking for.”
Moshe Kasher and Natasha Leggero’s The Endless Honeymoon live taping is noon Saturday, July 12, at the OCF Front Porch stage. For more information and a complete listing of events, go to OregonCountryFair.org. Kasher and Leggero perform 7 pm and 9:30 pm July 17 through 19 at Olsen Run Comedy Club & Lounge, 44 East 7th Avenue. Olsen Run tickets begin at $30, the show is 21-plus.