#662 - Matt Rife

Matt Rife is a stand up comedian and actor. You can see him live on his “Stay Golden” tour now through the end of the year. Matt joins Theo to talk about buying a haunted house, why his grandfather was his biggest role model, and when crowd work goes wrong. Matt Rife: https://www.instagram.com/mattrife/ Matt’s new movie “Rolling Loud”: https://www.instagram.com/rollingloud/ ------------------------------------------------- Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo Prize Picks: Go to https://link.prizepicks.com/LME0/THEO and use code THEO to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Play Responsibly. Moonpay: Head over to https://www.moonpay.com/theo to sign up Mountain Dew: Look for American Dew limited-time packaging or find it in stores near you at http://mountaindew.com Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on our episodes. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/ Producer: Halston https://www.instagram.com/halstonrays/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Theo Von?

  This episode is sponsored by Mountain Dew. Look for American Dew, limited time packaging, or find it in stores near you at Mountain Dew.com. I want to tap in right here and let you know if you are somebody that enjoys merchandise. And we got a few summer essentials for you over there in the shop. Uh, we got those gang gang tote bags and we got some trucker hats with that foam back, that mesh back. So you can, you know, you can get them wet, you can get them dry, baby. You know what I'm talking about? You can get them wet and dry. Uh, check them all out if you want that, if you, uh, if you do, um, thank you so much.

• 0:40Theo Von?

  Uh, it's, it's available at theovonstore.com and, um, thank you to anybody, uh, who's ever been supportive in any way. Amen. Today's guest is a stand-up comedian, uh, and an actor. Um, he's, he's pretty much, he's the Tim Burton of Rhode Island. I think that's safe to say he's got a new show coming out later this year on Netflix called The Altruists. Um, we're thankful to have him. This is his first time being here and, um, he's had quite a journey. Uh, and we're just, we're excited. Uh, today's guest is Mr. Matt Rife.

• 1:33Theo Von?

  How we doing here?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Looking good, dude.

• 1:35Theo Von?

  Looking all right?

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37Theo Von?

  I just want to make sure I look fucking BLM adjacent.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  You what?

• 1:43Theo Von?

  I just want to make sure that I look, uh.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  BLM adjacent?

• 1:46Theo Von?

  Yeah, I want to look BLM adjacent.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Like you wouldn't protest yourself, but you'd help make the signs?

• 1:50Theo Von?

  I just want them to know that, you know what I'm saying? I'll, yeah, I'll pull up, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:55Theo Von?

  But I'm not getting crazy out there.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  No, no, like I'll, I'll, I'll hit the barbecue, but I'm not hitting the march, you know?

• 2:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  It's gotta be a line.

• 2:03Theo Von?

  Yeah. Cause the BLM march also, I think it just got too.

• 2:07Theo Von?

  I don't know.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  It came at a good time in my life. I had just gotten a whoop bracelet, so I was all about my steps at that time.

• 2:13Theo Von?

  Oh, for the BLM marches?

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was kind of right on time.

• 2:15Theo Von?

  Oh, that's a great point, dude. People don't think about, dude, I wouldn't be surprised, and this is a conspiracy theory. A lot of those were like BLM marches and like, probably the, you know, I don't know, also maybe like the George Floyd protests. That was all kind of the same thing, I think.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 2:33Theo Von?

  But were the BLM marches and stuff, was all that part of like just big propaganda for like the whoop bracelet in some of those companies?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Is that a real conspiracy? That people would think it was just for the fitness aspect?

• 2:43Theo Von?

  I don't know. Let's look that up on perplexity if you can, dude. What are they saying? Is there, because all I'm saying is that's smart. That's smart. Do we put out this thing? People need their steps. How do we get them outdoors?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  It's a black bracelet.

• 2:57Theo Von?

  I'm just saying.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  The bracelet could have been any color.

• 2:59Theo Von?

  Hey, you said it.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  It's way too early in the pod for that.

• 3:01Theo Von?

  I mean, bro, this pod's been through a lot, so.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I know, man. I'm so happy we finally made it happen.

• 3:06Theo Von?

  I think we'll be fine, dude. Me too, man.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Good to see you, dude. Good to see you too, man.

• 3:10Theo Von?

  Wow. I forget, dude. No, there's no credible evidence that the BLM marches were a conspiracy to sell whoops.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  What?

• 3:18Theo Von?

  Which is a little slangish, I feel like, for perplexity, or that the protests themselves were pre-planned as a fake operation. Huh. What is true is that the 2020 protests happened in response to the George Floyd killing and like many large demonstrations that included a mix of peaceful marches and some incidents of violence, looting, and misinformation.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  I gotta tell you, man, you're very good at reading out loud.

• 3:40Theo Von?

  You think?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Your cold read skills are incredible.

• 3:42Theo Von?

  Really?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I was stumbling over those words, not even saying it out loud. Yeah, that was very impressive.

• 3:47Theo Von?

  I'm just glad to know that you don't have every skill, dude, because when you like, because you were like, dude, you kind of, you made things difficult on a lot of us, bro, when you were like the good-looking comedian, dude, and.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  First of all, were hurt a lot. That was the meanest part of the sentence.

• 4:05Theo Von?

  Fuck, sorry. You changed a lot, bro, when you became, you just changed the whole, it was like. Cause comedian was a safe place for like kind of regular looking dudes. Who didn't have that thing, bro. Who couldn't really go around, who couldn't just walk up to a woman and be like, ta-da.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  That's not true. You literally have that. Everybody knows that.

• 4:25Theo Von?

  No.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:27Theo Von?

  That's, uh, thank you.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  No, man. Amongst the comedy community, you're a piece of ass, dude. Everybody knows this.

• 4:33Theo Von?

  This is not true, dude.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Absolutely true. You gotta get out and ask more.

• 4:36Theo Von?

  Well, I mean, I mean, I, I, I, I mean, I don't think so, but what I do know is there's a, there's only a few. No, you did it, bro. You were like, oh my God. And people, dude, I remember a lot of comedians, a lot of us were, we wouldn't even go out of our houses for months even.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  After I, after I came onto the scene, after I started doing pushups.

• 4:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, people were like, rah! We were making noises that we'd never even made before.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Primal urges.

• 5:05Theo Von?

  Yeah, we didn't even know what to do, dude. We were buying beer and just smashing the cans and just all kinds of shit. People were just drinking Dr. Pepper and just like touching themselves in parks and stuff. People didn't know how to operate. They didn't know how to operate, brother. Um, but yeah, dude. Anyway, good to see you, bro. I'm just kinda giving you a hard time.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Likewise, man. I've seen you forever.

• 5:26Theo Von?

  I know. Congrats on all of your success and everything, bro.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 5:29Theo Von?

  So cool.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  It's wild, dude. It's a lot.

• 5:32Theo Von?

  It, it's a lot, yeah?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:34Theo Von?

  You know what? We did talk one time. Hold on, I'm not, I'm not even done with this yet. Is it, is it, does it bug you that I say the good looking comedian thing? Does that bug you at all or no?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Hmm, no, it doesn't bother, it doesn't bother me. It bothers other people, I suppose.

• 5:44Theo Von?

  It does? You think?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I get shit for it all the time. People act like I'm the one walking around saying it.

• 5:48Theo Von?

  Oh, yes.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  That's the weird part.

• 5:51Theo Von?

  Bro, no. Dude, yeah, cause it was like, what do you mean? Cause first you heard rumors as a guy and he's, he's doing comedy and it's good and he's, and he's good looking and people are like, what do you mean? People were calling their grandfathers. Grandfathers. And your grandpa would be like, what do you mean? And his woo bracelet would fucking start, you know? Not good, not good. Call Edna now. Like, report to grandmother.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I didn't realize I was affecting families.

• 6:18Theo Von?

  Dude, you were just, it was just a lot for people, bro. Um.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 6:23Theo Von?

  Because people had never seen that, the, the, you know, this is like, there's a, there's, there's some people that have like skill, like a skill, and then another skill, like, people are surprised when somebody has one skill and then they also have something else. It's almost like, um. Like Justin Tucker, do you know who that is for Baltimore? The Baltimore Ravens kicker? Can you bring him up?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:42Theo Von?

  He's an, I believe he's a, is he an opera singer? He's a mezzo-

• 6:46Speaker 01

  He's, he's a singer?

• 6:47Theo Von?

  He's a singer, bro.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  No way.

• 6:48Theo Von?

  So we got that leg and that throat, bro.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Just a full body powerhouse.

• 6:54Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 7:23Theo Von?

  They said it would take a man forty years to get out of this here prison. But Andy Dufresne did it in less than twenty. Bro, props to Justin Tucker. I mean, that's beautiful.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  What do you think is the bigger flex? Being an NFL punter or having that kind of skill set to opera sing?

• 7:39Theo Von?

  I think that you get you, the NFL punter is just a mild thing that he's doing.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  It's a hobby.

• 7:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Just to pay the bills while he pursues.

• 7:47Theo Von?

  Bro, when you got that kind of lung in you, bro, and you out there just, he's just all lungs.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  You ever try? You ever try to sing like that? Like just be like, I wonder if I can?

• 7:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think I have probably. Have you?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. It's always like when you're in your car, you turn the radio down, you turn the volume down just enough to hear yourself. You're like, am I fucking this up? Then you can hear yourself, you're like, I'm fucking ruining this song. Like, I know I don't have it in me. Because you have to try eventually. You don't know what skill set you might have.

• 8:10Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Like, I was watching-

• 8:11Theo Von?

  That's a good point. Yeah, you don't know what skill set you might have, right? And who even ever even tries? How many people could be, like, they never even tried? That's unbelievable. Yeah, like, what, yeah, like, are there things you've tried? Are there some side quests that you've kind of tried?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  You know what? I feel like I've been so busy, I haven't had time to really explore a lot of other avenues. But I'd like to learn stuff. I'd love to learn like an instrument or something or fucking magic, dude.

• 8:35Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  You fuck with magic?

• 8:36Theo Von?

  I mean, I think it's, you know, I'm kind of like, that's where the black in me shows up at the surface, bro. When people start doing a lot of magic.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Like, it feels like it could be too real?

• 8:47Theo Von?

  It just like, what if this dude's doing this right here, what's he doing in his all, in his, you know what I'm saying? If he's willing to show us this?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:54Theo Von?

  What's he doing at the house?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  That's a good point. But also picturing somebody learning magic in their house by themselves is also one of the funniest things I could, I can imagine. I can't picture anything lonelier. Nobody around to see your wallah? Or your kazam? Whatever your fucking power word is?

• 9:09Theo Von?

  Wallah?

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. Is that, is that not a, is that not a magician word? Is that like a chef, is that chef shit?

• 9:16Theo Von?

  That's a good question, bro. Yeah, do chefs and magicians beef over their like, uh, over their like verbal like ejaculate or whatever it's called? Or like they're like, do chefs and magicians beef over like their, what is it called, do you think, Matt? They're like-

• 9:31Speaker 01

  They're, um, it's not deliver, they are, it is a delivery, but like-

• 9:34Theo Von?

  They're finishing syllables, kinda.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Finishing syllables, yes. Is it onomatopoeia?

• 9:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Is that what it is?

• 9:39Theo Von?

  I think it is, dude.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Is that like the word for sounds?

• 9:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, bring that up, onomatopoeia, dude.

• 9:46Theo Von?

  Onomatopoeia was like some kid that couldn't read good that had to go to the toilet or whatever. I remember that. We had a dude in our, uh, in our Sunday school and he couldn't, you just started looking at him, bro, and you could tell he had to go to the toilet.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  He was fidgeting.

• 10:00Theo Von?

  Yeah, he was, his whole body would start shaking, bro.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna lie to you, I, I would have lost all my money on how to spell that word, onomatopoeia.

• 10:06Theo Von?

  And you'd be like, damn, onomatopoeia soon, bro. So we gotta get him out of here, bro.

• 10:13Theo Von?

  And on, and onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates or suggests the sound that it describes.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I, I didn't even know there was a T in there. I've, I've been saying onomatopoeia my entire life.

• 10:28Theo Von?

  Yeah. Well, we can take a break if you need us to. Impacts and collisions, so like boom, bang, crash. You know what did it a lot was like those old comic books with like, uh, Batman.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. It was just, it's just the one big word, bang.

• 10:43Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Back when it was, uh, was Adam West was like the original Batman. You a big comic guy?

• 10:48Theo Von?

  You know, I'm not that big into it, but I, I think I liked it when I was a kid, but I never got into the comic books.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  I feel that.

• 10:54Theo Von?

  Did you?

• 10:54Speaker 01

  No, I can't do it. I don't know why. I'm not a big on paper kinda guy.

• 10:58Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Like, I'm not reading the Harry Potter books. I'm not doing it.

• 11:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, now, I mean, I could settle. I think if I ever have to go to the hospital for a long time, I'm saving Sopranos and Harry Potter for when I gotta go to the hospital.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  For a long recovery series?

• 11:11Theo Von?

  Yeah, hospital if I get married and if my wife's in a coma or something, I gotta sit in there with her.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  You just have her propped up to watch the series? That's, uh, what's the, um?

• 11:20Theo Von?

  Well, I mean, I'm gonna have just, I wanna have something to do. I wanna be able to look for, cause some people, that's such a scary time in their life if your spouse is in a coma or something, if your wife's in a coma. So I wanna at least be able to look forward to something. So I've saved those things till then.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  What's that? Is it Munchausen syndrome? Is where you keep somebody sick so that they need you? I could see you doing that just to, just to finish the series.

• 11:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, like my, my, my wife's like, she's starting, like, you're getting like a little bit of reading on her, like her, like, beep, beep, beep.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  On the, on the Harvey monitor?

• 11:48Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Theo Von?

  Like, oh, hold on, honey.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  I'm almost done.

• 11:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on, I got four episodes of Breaking Bad left. Dude, you know that's happened to somebody.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent. No, there was a guy, uh, I, I met a guy at a show one time who he, faked being sick from work for three weeks to stay home and watch TV. That was like his full thing.

• 12:08Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  And his wife totally just allowed it.

• 12:10Theo Von?

  Ooh.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Which was like a cool mom letting you skip school.

• 12:13Theo Von?

  That's gotta be dope.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, that, that's the one.

• 12:16Theo Von?

  That's the, the one?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  I wanna find a lady like that.

• 12:19Theo Von?

  On the second day, she's like, oh, I see what you're doing.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He's not even faking it anymore on day three. He's just living his life. She's on to him.

• 12:25Theo Von?

  Yeah, and she's like, I like it.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  How long are you gonna be here?

• 12:31Theo Von?

  Dang dude, yeah, that's gotta be if you get like a good partner like that. But yeah dude, so that's like, uh, what were we even talking about?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  How the fuck did we get into watching TV?

• 12:40Theo Von?

  Onomatopoeia.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Onomatopoeia, yeah, the bangs, the wallas, magic.

• 12:44Theo Von?

  Oh, magic.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  That's what it was.

• 12:45Theo Von?

  What would your, yeah, yeah. What's your finishing term?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 12:49Theo Von?

  Cause how did, uh, walla come to be a term? How did, uh, or ta-da?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  I think it's ta-da, walla is definitely a chef term. I don't know why that came to me first. Walla sounds like, uh, tells audience the tri- oh.

• 13:02Theo Von?

  Oh, walla came from voila. Tells the audience.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Abracadabra, that's a, yeah, classic. It's magic might be the lamest one. I, you do a trick and you gotta tell them what it is.

• 13:13Theo Von?

  It's magic.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  That's magic.

• 13:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, hey, that's like if you're making love to a girl and it sounded that good, you're like, it's sex. Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  That's cum.

• 13:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's wiener. She's like, it's barely wiener. You're like, okay.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  It's not dick for sure.

• 13:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's not dick. It's wiener. It's almost like one of those like, can't believe it's not dick.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  How is that not like Blue Choo's motto?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Blue Choo, him's pills, I can't believe it's not dick.

• 13:42Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, that's weird.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  You ever pop one of those bad boys?

• 13:45Theo Von?

  The Blue Choo's?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:46Theo Von?

  Oh dude, yes, and dude, I'll even, I'll even nibble just half of one.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  A half?

• 13:51Theo Von?

  Well, yeah, I kinda based it on like how, what's going on or whatever. Like, cause I used to live with my buddy's dad, I used to live, brother.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Wait, hold on, how could this possibly? Where's this going?

• 14:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, it doesn't go anywhere gay, it goes to a straight place.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  There's no way it does.

• 14:05Theo Von?

  But it takes a gay route.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm listening, I'm following the curve.

• 14:08Theo Von?

  My buddy's dad, and RIP my buddy's dad, just passed, uh, Wally. And I lived with him, dude, right out of high school, I lived with him, cause he had a script for, uh, them wiener pills, right?

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 14:19Theo Von?

  And I, you just could, they didn't have Blue Choo at the time, you couldn't just be getting those uppers, bruh. You know what I'm saying? And so when somebody had, it was like, dude, so I was like, well, if I live with Wally, then he's got a script and I can just pop him if I need him, cause I had a ton of sexual anxiety.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  And he wasn't using them all?

• 14:38Theo Von?

  He was using them, he was going through them pretty quick, that's what I didn't know.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 14:41Theo Von?

  I wish he'd have told me that before we signed the lease. So.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  I thought you were gonna have visitors.

• 14:46Theo Von?

  Oh, I thought, dude, I thought I was gonna be living large, dude. You know what I'm saying, bro? I'm just, I'm just saying like his erection was getting its steps in, you know?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  He's gonna whoop, he's gonna whoop around it?

• 14:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's dick, you know?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  What was the, what was the sexual anxiety that you had?

• 15:04Theo Von?

  Oh, just in my, I had a lot of sexual anxiety, bro.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Just nerves?

• 15:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, a ton of nerves.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 15:09Theo Von?

  But like, I had a tough time talking with girls that made me nervous, bro. Like, super nervous, cuz I think I had a tough relationship with my mother, so even just the interaction with like, looking at a woman, being looked at by a woman, that kinda stuff was like, made me super like nervous. So I think that just, that didn't just, it doesn't just go away kinda, so then you move on through life and now, now the women you're interacting with, it's like about, you know, uh, dating, intimacy, dating, sexuality, whatever, weiner. And then, that's all, you know? So just some of that, but anyway. So I went to live, and I gotta talk, dude, I have you here and I'm talking so much.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  No, I love the story already.

• 15:46Theo Von?

  Uh, so I went to live with Wally, bruh, R.I.P., shout out. And, uh, and so we were living over there, we were living in like a studio apartment too, dude. So, oh, no, no, it wasn't that bad, sorry. It was a one bedroom, but the bedroom didn't have, it just had a little balcony, it didn't have like a full wall.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Got it, got it, okay.

• 16:05Theo Von?

  So I'd sleep out on the couch, and he had a car, and he would let me borrow his car, but the car, you couldn't turn it off, you had to get it jumped. So I would drive the car to school and I'd park, like, this was at Loyola in New Orleans, I would park up by the, like, teacher's area and just leave it running the whole time, and for some reason, if the car's running, they like wouldn't put a ticket on it, like, oh, somebody just ran inside or whatever.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  It's genius.

• 16:25Theo Von?

  So I'd leave it running the whole time I was at class, it would cost like maybe six dollars in gas, but I would leave it running, anyway. He got the pills, I would try to nibble off them so he didn't see, and I would try to reshape him and shit, bruh.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  I was carving them into crescent moons?

• 16:39Theo Von?

  Dude, I was trying to make them all smaller and shit, bro. I was like.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Chiseling it?

• 16:44Theo Von?

  Yes, yeah. Bro, I was like, yeah, like shifting, it would be like an oval and now it's just like a diamond or something, like, it was trap shit, bro.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Did he ever catch you?

• 16:54Theo Von?

  Huh? He never brought it up to me, bro.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  That's a gentleman.

• 16:57Theo Von?

  And he'd have ladies over sometimes, and I was learning the guitar actually at the time, and he'd have, he'd go in there sometimes at night and play Tears in Heaven for them, that's a song I could play.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Tears, who sings that?

• 17:06Theo Von?

  Um, I did at the time. It was, uh, Eric Clapton, there you go. Would you know my name?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Being serenaded to that would, uh, I don't even know if I need the pills.

• 17:18Theo Von?

  Saw you in here. Yeah, they'd be drinking orange juice and vodka in the bed and I'd go in there and just play it for them a couple times.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  It's so hard to smash with a roommate. I remember my first apartment in L.A., I was living with my manager's son at the time. And it was, it was, it was a studio, there was just no, there was no door into the bedroom. So it was really an open floor plan. And I was sleeping, I lived on the couch and I had like the small closet and then he had like what would be considered the bedroom. I remember he was out of town one weekend and this girl wanted to come over and I, um, we, we had, uh, we did sex in, in his bed. And she was like, where are all those clothes doing out there? I was like, oh yeah, I let my friend live on the couch.

• 17:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, oh, always.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, my friend's not doing well, I would say.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course, it makes it seem like I'm doing a good deed.

• 17:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, he's passing through town, like he's passing through town, he put all his pickers up on the walls and shit? You're like, yeah, he's the kinda guy he is.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Of course, travels with his memories, yeah.

• 18:07Theo Von?

  Yeah, travels with his memories, dude. Uh, voila, dude.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Voila.

• 18:13Theo Von?

  Were you guys out this weekend? I knew you were here for CMA Fest, right?

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I came down for, uh, to do some stuff with Billboard with the Reggae Clashe Rays. And then, uh, stayed in town for the shows, man, I fucking love it here.

• 18:22Theo Von?

  You do?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I almost moved to Nashville, but I wanted land and I wanted a lot of it.

• 18:26Theo Von?

  Right.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  And there wasn't anything within like an hour of the city that I really liked. If you live an hour outside of Nashville, you don't really live in Nashville, you live in fucking Chattanooga.

• 18:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, you live a little bit further out, I agree. Yeah, it's nice, there's some good land out there, um, yeah, dude, what, yeah, what, sorry, what did I see with Reggae Clashe Rays? You were giving them an award?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I gave them the, uh, Groundbreakers Award for Billboard, which was awesome, man.

• 18:47Theo Von?

  So cool, dude.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  They're such good guys.

• 18:49Theo Von?

  Oh, they're the best, oh, there you are, right there, dude.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Bro, this, so, there was no introduction whatsoever, they just go, and Matt Rife. Everybody's like, wait, for real? Turning away from the bar, there's a giant open pit of like, I'm gonna say thirty feet by fifty feet, of people just standing like it was a wet floor. Nobody wanted to come close, it's the weirdest thing ever, yeah. It's okay, it's like two minutes long, they bring the guys up.

• 19:09Theo Von?

  Dude, that's awesome, you got to bring these guys up, they're special, bro. You know, comedy really, a lot of comedians really embrace them. I think a lot of, if you go to their shows, it's almost music for men and young men, do you feel like that in a way?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I do, I do, it's, I mean, it's such a- I don't know, it reminds me of music from like the 50s and 60s, which I think was like music's golden age. And I think there's a, there's a yearning for that, because everybody loves that sound, but there's no new production of that. And I think they, they put that out. It's refreshing. I love those guys.

• 19:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, they're so good, bro. Sometimes I feel.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Dude, it's my favorite song. I fuck it. I'm still fine. So good. Kyle and I would blast that in the house for days.

• 19:47Theo Von?

  People here living it up, I think I'm blind. Thinking I'm out of their mind.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Oh, God, it's so good, dude. Oh, I love them. Shout out to Regly Strays.

• 19:57Theo Von?

  Pull up those lyrics, dude. Let me see those lyrics for a second.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  You know, Brandon's brother, Matthew, wrote that song.

• 20:05Theo Von?

  He wrote it?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, not even, not even in the band, technically.

• 20:07Theo Von?

  I saw.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  He's writing hits, dude.

• 20:09Theo Von?

  I saw him the other night, dude. I knew he wrote some of their songs. Sometimes I feel like I can't feel. Obviously, this is a song about being on antidepressants, then. This is a song about coming off of SSRIs, dude.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  This is real, should be hurting.

• 20:25Theo Von?

  This is real, should be hurting. I was alone, I was a song, music and bone, God's perfect wording. People here living it up, I think they're blind, I think they're out of their minds. Not one of them has had this. God's not giving up on me, no, I'm just fine. It's just a matter of time.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  I mean, there's bars in there, man.

• 20:41Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  I think that's powerful stuff. People here living, I think they're blind. It's like, yeah, how can you, how can you be so positive with all the stuffs going on?

• 20:49Theo Von?

  Dude, I think that's kind of, sometimes it's where we are in the world, and I don't even want to get negative, but it's like, it does feel sometimes like we are pretending that we're okay. Does that make sense?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, I think I operate from a, a big position of just bliss. I try, I try to stay out of stuff. Like, I'm not, I'm not a political person at all. Like, I just, I, I shouldn't get torn for, to shreds for even saying this, but like, I don't pay attention. It seems so stressful. It seems like all bad stuff all the time. And I'm like, it, it's either happened, or it's not, nothing I can really do about it.

• 21:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  So, I mean, sometimes being uninformed leads to a little bit of happiness.

• 21:21Theo Von?

  Dude, no, it's a good, it's a good point. I think the more that I've, the more I learn sometimes, the more it hurts sometimes, or something hurt. I don't, I don't know what it is.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  No, I think that's life, though. I think about like, when you're a kid, you don't know anything. Life is so blissful, right? You can't, you don't, you don't even know about all the problems going on.

• 21:38Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, you're, that's so right. Little kids are just like, they don't know anything.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Mm-mm. I think the more you learn as life goes by, I mean, I think the, the magic of, of life kind of gets, um. smeared

• 21:51Theo Von?

  yeah you know I sometimes I wonder it's like cause sometimes we talk we'll talk about stuff on here that's like kind of political or things that like we feel a lot of it's like stuff that you end up learning about through technology too and it's like we wouldn't know it if we were like back in like tribal time where we were in like these you know if we didn't have so much technology we wouldn't know a lot of this stuff

• 22:09Speaker 01

  but do you think that's how we're supposed to be though?

• 22:11Theo Von?

  I don't think it's how we're supposed to be. I think there will be a time in the future where we will look back and or someone will look back and they'll be like what were they do how did they even what was happening?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  you think do you think we're supposed to know about everything going on in the world like do you think we should know what's going on like overseas in different countries with different people?

• 22:31Theo Von?

  it's tough dude

• 22:32Speaker 01

  like as human beings?

• 22:34Theo Von?

  well I wonder if sometimes I think that no it doesn't do us any good I mean a lot of times I'm angry about stuff that's not even in my area and then it's like where I could probably put that's put that same energy towards stuff that is maybe more localized

• 22:48Speaker 01

  yeah

• 22:48Theo Von?

  or even in my own family and personal life to have a better effect on those things or try to

• 22:55Theo Von?

  but then I also I've heard people talk about like that there's no real separation like between space and time so I wonder sometimes like if people like if you see something that's so painful in the world and you prayed enough about it or you really tried to channel like whatever good had been blessed to you or bestowed upon you if you try to channel it towards like could you have an effect you know so because then that makes me think oh well then there is some purpose to all of that

• 23:20Speaker 01

  yeah absolutely

• 23:22Theo Von?

  but I don't know I don't know any of that but it's just it is stuff to think about

• 23:25Speaker 01

  no that's a good spiritual direction though I like that

• 23:27Theo Von?

  you know it's something to think about but I don't think there's anything I can't sit here and be like sometime like sometimes I'll be like well why don't certain people say this or say speak up some but that's that's me like trying to project or think some way it's like everybody's on their own thing

• 23:41Speaker 01

  yeah of course

• 23:42Theo Von?

  sometimes I maybe have wishes but but sometimes it's like yeah it'd be better to just like sit and laugh sometimes people just want their comedians to just joke around and not be not be talking about this stuff

• 23:52Speaker 01

  yeah sometimes just because somebody doesn't speak up on something doesn't mean that they're not empathetic about it maybe they just maybe they can't handle it maybe that's just not where they're They may have blinders on, you know, they have their sights on something specific or just minding their own business. Doesn't always mean they're a bad person, I don't think.

• 24:06Theo Von?

  No, I don't think so either. Yeah, like I have friends and my buddy's like, dude, I was like, do you ever think about this or worry about this? He's like, well, you know, I got a couple of kids, my kids right now, and I have a kid who, you know, he has a kid that has some learning disabilities. Like, I just spend, I have to focus all on that. It's like, you can't fault that. It's like.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  No, I think that's actually better. I think, I think, I think focusing a lot of your energy on the things more direct to you, I think can be a good thing. I think that's a lot more peaceful. Think about the things that get like, people are complaining online all the time about something, right?

• 24:33Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  All the time. And it's like, okay, is that thing you're complaining about to you personally more important than like, you know, your kid's baseball game? Or whatever it is, or their birthday party coming up, or something that's more important to you directly?

• 24:45Theo Von?

  Right. If you're sitting in the stands, like you're like mastering a tweet and you miss your kid's like, you know, double or he gets a hit.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  I agree. How do you even have time to do that? If you're not focused on something more important?

• 24:57Theo Von?

  And sometimes we'll leave, I'll notice, I'll find other things to worry about, so I don't have to worry about my own shit.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's healthy or not.

• 25:05Theo Von?

  Oh, I don't think it is at all, but I noticed I'll even use worrying about other stuff sometimes as like a method of like escapism from like, not taking care of the things I need to be taken care of.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  That's a very good point. Next time my dick doesn't get hard, I'm gonna be like, it's just with everything going on in Iran right now, you know what I mean? Like, how can you even possibly expect me to pee up right now?

• 25:24Theo Von?

  You're expecting sex when there are people starving somewhere? Okay.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  I think it's perfect.

• 25:31Theo Von?

  Oh, my penis isn't working. It's obvious, you know, that's, look, there's stuff happening in Gaza right now and you're expect, what are you, you're expecting a lot. Okay, you want troops on the ground over here, right? But you don't want it over there? What are we talking about? It is kind of, that's, that's hilarious, dude.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, classic Mr. X.

• 25:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that time. Not, it's not time to get a divorce or anything like that. It's that time for PrizePicks. That's what I'm saying. PrizePicks is America's number one sports picks app. The app is really simple to use. To get started, you just pick more or less on two plus player stat projections and lock your picks in. That's, that's how you do it. Or if you'd rather just pick teams, then you can do that. PrizePicks has that now too. Just pick the winner, spread and total on any major game or fight. Simple. And with the UFC White House card this weekend, there's no better time to get in on the action.

• 26:32Theo Von?

  Make a UFC lineup or just pick the winner of the fights and keep it simple. For my picks right here, I'm going to rock with Bo Nickel right there. More than two and a half rounds. Josh Hoke, uh, more than half of a round. And I'm going with the highlight, baby, Justin Gaethje. Uh, more than 44 and a half significant strikes. What a card, baby. What a card. You can even follow me at Theo Von directly in the app. Uh, you can see your friends' picks and mine. Uh, tail with caution. I am a novice. Best of all, PrizePicks will give you $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup.

• 27:17Theo Von?

  That's it. Win or lose, you get 50 bucks in lineups. Use promo code Theo when you download the app and sign up today. PrizePicks code Theo, play responsibly. As most of you guys are aware, Moonpay is my go-to place to buy crypto. It is. That's just the facts. And now Moonpay just launched something new called Moonpay Agents. It's tech that lets AI actually handle your crypto for you. Uh, that big guy.

• 27:53Theo Von?

  Think of it like a smart assistant that can buy, sell, trade, swap coins, set up recurring buys, and even convert crypto back into cash, all on your behalf. You just set up a wallet through Moonpay, verify your identity, once, just once, fund it with a bank transfer, Apple Pay, Venmo, or PayPal, and your agent can get to work. Your keys stay on your device, so you are in control. And it works across major chains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, ay, Solana, with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. It's accessible through all.

• 28:34Theo Von?

  Moonpay also powers crypto for millions of people in over 180 countries. I think that's all of them. Check out Moonpay Agents at moonpay.com/agents. Crypto is risky and can be volatile, so do your own research and trade responsibly. Yeah, I don't, it's, I mean, it is, it's, I think if we didn't have as much technology, would we take on the world as much, you know?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think it's healthy for us. I mean, obviously, there's so much good to be learned, you know? But I do feel like it distracts us from a lot of things we probably should be focusing on firsthand.

• 29:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I'll leave that open to interpretation. It's a more generalized concept, but I don't think it's good for us.

• 29:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think, uh, I think, I think a lot of different things about it, you know? What, so what else, what else at CMAZ you do? Have you spent a lot of time in Nashville or no?

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I've been performing here since I was like 16. Like, Zany's was one of the first clubs I ever got to perform at.

• 29:31Theo Von?

  Really?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:32Theo Von?

  Did you open up for somebody?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Oh, a bunch of people. I mean, Tommy Davidson, to Polly Shore, to Jim Brewer, Bill Bellamy I've opened for, oh, Ralphie, obviously. When I was like still living in Ohio, he used to let me come down here and do his shows right before Christmas at Zany's. And he would like, I mean, he would pay me like five, $600, which I'm in high school, so that's like a million dollars to me, so that I could like, I could go back home and like buy my family Christmas presents with that money.

• 29:58Theo Von?

  Oh, dude.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  He was like the nicest guy. So, I mean, I've been coming here for a while. I love it here. It's a good comedy scene, too.

• 30:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's good people, man. It's some of the best people.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  I couldn't agree more.

• 30:08Theo Von?

  What, I can't believe you got to come down here and work with Ralphie. That was so wild. What was that like? Did you see him having troubles back then? I mean, that was a long time ago.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  I mean, he was fat the whole time. I never knew him to not be gigantic. Um, so I mean, there was, I mean, I was also sixteen, seventeen. So again, I'm not really like looking for problems. Wow. Yeah, that's at the.

• 30:28Theo Von?

  That's you?

• 30:29Speaker 01

  That's the Brea Improv. Yeah, I think I'm, I'm seventeen in this. Maybe eighteen? I think I'd maybe just turn eighteen in that. Bro, look at that watch.

• 30:39Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Fake. Couldn't be more fake.

• 30:43Theo Von?

  I think it's supposed to be, what's it made out of like?

• 30:45Speaker 01

  It looks like a goddamn Ben 10 watch, dude.

• 30:47Theo Von?

  It looks like it's made out of ivory. Is it real ivory?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  No, it's not real ivory, man. It's pure plastic.

• 30:53Theo Von?

  Is that real tusk?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Not at all, man.

• 30:56Theo Von?

  Oh dude, look at Ralphie's smile, bro.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I miss him a lot. He was such a good guy. He started when he was super young too. I think he started when he was fourteen.

• 31:06Theo Von?

  He was full of black. He said he was so big because a lot of his inside had a lot of blacks in.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  A lot of blacks in him?

• 31:13Theo Von?

  Black people inside of him.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  I mean, you could fit a couple of black people inside of him.

• 31:16Theo Von?

  He said there was like a couple of black guys in the front seat and the backseat of him.

• 31:21Theo Von?

  Cause you know, sometimes you give one brother a ride, a couple of brothers show like, like whoa, who's that? You know?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Somebody hopping on the pegs, you know?

• 31:30Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. That was the craziest thing, bro. I used to bike through the neighborhood and on my way to school, I'd go through the black area. And my buddy Jonathan would get on the, um, on the back and then like sometimes a couple of his buddies would get on the front, dude.

• 31:45Theo Von?

  And so I was just this little, just like white little engine that could, dude, you know, just like.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Cabs just pumping.

• 31:50Theo Von?

  I think I can. I think I can. I'm just sitting there, yeah. And they used to call me the N-word bus. That's what they, that's what they call me. When they saw me pulling up, they're like, oh, here come your bus. And they'd all jump on, dude, and I'd have to get like five guys to get the, you know, help them get their education or whatever. And I was like, I can do it.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Get their education? Like you were a public service?

• 32:10Theo Von?

  Bro, if I didn't get them there, it was like eleven more blocks to school. If I. Didn't get them there, they wasn't going, bro.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  They stopped at block eight?

• 32:17Theo Von?

  Oh, bro, yeah, yeah. One or two dudes got off, bro. We never saw them again.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  That's so fucking funny, dude.

• 32:23Theo Von?

  So, that was wild, bro. But yeah, Ralphie was like, Ralphie was one of a kind, bro. I can't name somebody else that's like Ralphie. Can you really?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  No, man. I really wish I could see how he would have navigated like comedy today. It's changed so much in just the 15 years that I've been doing it. And watching him, I mean, not give a fuck isn't the most articulate way to say that, but like, he was just so unapologetically himself. And people fuck with it, dude. I didn't, I had never met anybody who didn't like him.

• 32:52Theo Von?

  Oh. Dude, I remember I broke down when he passed. It like really hit me hard.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Oh, same, man. That was arguably my first like mentor in comedy. He, um, I was, I wasn't even, I think I'd maybe just turned 16. He was coming to Youngstown, Ohio. He was playing a theater up there. No, I'm sorry, it was Cleveland. He was, he was doing a Hilarities up there. And this was like when Twitter, like you could, you could reach anybody on Twitter. Everybody was so accessible. So I like tweeted at him. I was like, hey, I'm this kid in Ohio and I'm doing comedy now. Can I open for you at Hilarity? And he was like, yeah, you know what? Fuck it. Come on down.

• 33:29Theo Von?

  What?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  But my mom ruined it. She, she, well, cause she had no experience in this whatsoever. I mean, to her, this is just a grown man inviting her son up to Cleveland.

• 33:38Theo Von?

  Right. This is like pedophilia or whatever.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. She had no idea. I mean, I had been doing comedy.

• 33:42Theo Von?

  Or humorous pedophilia.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Humorous pedophilia. Maybe five months I've been doing standup. So I didn't know anything either. So she's asking like, where do I park? Do we need to buy tickets? What time do we need to be there? Where do we need to go? Do I need to talk to anybody? I ended up asking him so many questions on behalf of my mom. He was like, hey, man, I actually, it's actually not going to work out. So he can't, he canceled on me. And then maybe six months later, he was doing Youngstown and he let me come up and do that. That was like my first theater show. Paid me a hundred dollars for it. It was nice.

• 34:11Theo Von?

  What, did you, did you hold that against your mom?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm like, I was devastated. Cause to me, I was like, this is gonna be my big break. You know what I mean? I'm gonna be this famous comedian after doing one guest spot in Cleveland.

• 34:21Theo Von?

  Oh, but that's all it takes, dude. You get three minutes of a video. Somebody bringing you up, you get to bring Ralphie up, anything, when you're that age?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 34:29Theo Von?

  Bananas.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  I know, it would have been awesome. The theater show was very cool. I ended up, I actually ended up meeting, um, Tony Hinchcliffe's mom at that show.

• 34:37Theo Von?

  In Youngstown?

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was just like, yeah, I have a son who just moved to LA, he's doing comedy out there, opening for like Jeff Ross. I didn't think anything of it, I didn't know anybody. Moved to LA and he was like, you fucking know my mom.

• 34:48Theo Von?

  And why did, why was she at that show?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  She was just a Ralphie fan.

• 34:51Theo Von?

  No.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was totally, totally random. I was just taking pictures of people after the show and she was like, yeah, my, my son lives out there. He said his mom still has, like, the piece of paper that I signed for her. She kept it even after all those years.

• 35:02Theo Von?

  Oh, that's pretty cool, dude.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  So crazy.

• 35:04Theo Von?

  Yeah, I forget, he's from Youngstown, huh?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:07Theo Von?

  Dude, was it a pretty urban show?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  No, dude, Youngstown was so white. It was so white, dude. But I mean, this was also when he was doing, Ralphie was doing this bit about the N-word and I think it, I think it made it into one of his specials where he was basically trying to make a point that if you desensitize the word and make it mean something different. So he was like, I think we should name the most delicious flavored cookie, the N-word. That way you say like, I love that.

• 35:32Theo Von?

  Oh, I see that.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  You could, you could say it more optimistically. Um, but this was like a mostly white room with a few black people, but it didn't matter. Like, the joke was just great across the board. Like, he was for everybody. His, his crowds were so eclectic.

• 35:45Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  And I loved coming up with that. I never wanted to like pigeonhole and play to like a specific audience. I'm like, if he can appeal to everybody, like, that's the main goal.

• 35:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. Well, yeah, just to be your, I think to try and, try and be as close to your truth as what it is. And I think Ralphie was that guy. He was just like, he loved like being accepted by black folks and white folks. He loved bringing them together with humor.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:09Theo Von?

  Uh, and he loved just like being able to kind of be welcomed in that space because to be in that space also and navigate comedy, it's important.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Could agree more.

• 36:18Theo Von?

  You have like a, you don't have a responsibility or something, but you can bring people together. If two people can laugh at the same joke, that's a big thing.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  I couldn't agree more. I think sense of humor is so important, dude.

• 36:29Theo Von?

  Dude, that's so cool that you got to have some of those moments with him.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, when, when I first moved to LA, he, uh, he used to pick me up, we'd go to like a diner, he'd make me order like three entrees. And I was like, is this fucking for you? And he was like, no, whatever you don't eat, you can take home with you. Now you have like groceries for your week. Yeah, I have leftovers for it. The nicest guy, man.

• 36:47Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 36:49Theo Von?

  Dang, that's big, bro. That's a big heart. He was mostly heart. Hardened brothers inside of him.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Mostly hardened brothers. He was one of those people that like, I wish I could have got to share what I get to go through now with him. Because I knew him from like so, so young and he was somebody that I looked up to.

• 37:07Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Just to get his perspective on, see what advice he would have had, you know?

• 37:11Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. That was a huge loss. What did he pass away from exactly? Did he have pneumonia pretty bad?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  I think it was COVID. I think he had early COVID.

• 37:22Theo Von?

  I just want to get clear on that.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  It was not COVID. I'm pretty sure it was a heart attack. Yeah, cardiac arrest.

• 37:28Theo Von?

  Rafi made out of cardiac arrest caused by hypertensive cardiovascular disease, the Clark County, Nevada coroner officially ruled his death as natural.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 37:40Theo Von?

  He was battling pneumonia at the time.

• 37:44Theo Von?

  That happens a lot. Rafi had a heart attack. His lung collapsed.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  I mean, that lung was exhausted. I mean, god damn, bro.

• 37:55Theo Von?

  I think I can. I think I can. I think I can, dude. We gotta get these brothers to school, dude. That was his lung, dude. Oh damn, bro.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  He would love that joke, though. He would love that bit.

• 38:08Theo Von?

  He would love it, bro. Dude, honestly, I can, I'm not even joking. I can feel him smiling right now. That's one thing, bro. I believe that

• 38:19Theo Von?

  there is this, there's this, like between space and time. Like if we say like Rafi, we love you and we miss you and thank you for all the times you made us laugh. I think he can feel that somewhere.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 38:33Theo Von?

  So I think that there's like a, like I think there's a way that you like, that you can transfer like a feeling or like a hope, you know? Through space and time, you know? I don't know.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  No, you can call it prayer. You can call it whatever, whichever angle you want to come from. I think it does affect things.

• 38:49Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  And here's the thing, even if it doesn't, isn't it so much better to just believe it anyways?

• 38:53Theo Von?

  A hundred percent.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Isn't life just better to believe it?

• 38:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I feel the same way about fucking Bigfoot. Just cooler to believe he's out there.

• 38:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Is he? Probably not, but it's so much more fun to think maybe he is.

• 39:03Theo Von?

  Dude, what about the guy that just was on Joe Rogan that saw an eight, I think he was a Navy SEAL. Can you bring him up? They saw an eight foot big, they said eight foot. That's pretty big.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Well, how tall is Victor Wembanyana? He's gotta be close.

• 39:17Theo Von?

  But his little ass, he would be a punk, he would be kind of a punk in the Bigfoot community.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Just a runt.

• 39:21Theo Von?

  I mean, he would be, I mean, they would respect him for sure. He more of a Slenderman.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Oh, you fuck with Slenderman?

• 39:28Theo Von?

  I mean, I don't fuck with him.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Dude, I, I, that's my, that's my lane, dog. I love all spooky shit.

• 39:33Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. Do you, you bought all this, you bought the spooky, you, um, you invested in Ed and Lorraine's, uh...

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, their home museum.

• 39:40Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 39:41Theo Von?

  That's right, dude. That's where you live. You live in, uh...

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Rhode Island.

• 39:44Theo Von?

  In Rhode Island.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But their house is in Connecticut, so it's just, it's down the street, hour and a half drive, something like that. It's fucking awesome, man.

• 39:51Theo Von?

  How did that come to pass, man? I know some of this might be old news.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  No, no, no. It's not a lot of people know that I'm even into this stuff. Um, my friend and my business partner, Elton Casta, uh, he and I started doing like, he had been doing ghost hunting on YouTube for, oh, God, probably close to like eight years now. And then I kind of came aboard about five years ago, something like that. We've been like around the world to some of the most haunted places. It's so fucking cool.

• 40:13Theo Von?

  You have?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:14Theo Von?

  We had Sam and Colby on here talking about that before.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Oh, those guys are awesome. Yeah, those guys are fucking sick.

• 40:19Theo Von?

  Dude, one time I went to dinner with Rogan, I go meet him. Sam and Colby are, are, they're like...

• 40:24Speaker 01

  He's with Joe?

• 40:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Shut up.

• 40:26Theo Von?

  Blew my mind, dude.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. They're good dudes.

• 40:29Theo Von?

  I was like, what the fuck are y'all doing here, dude?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  It's a smaller world than you think.

• 40:33Theo Von?

  Oh, they're like the, like, spooky N'Sync, kind of. It's like, it's kind of what they seem like a little bit when you meet them, you know?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, they're handsome for no reason.

• 40:41Theo Von?

  Yeah. It's like, oh, you're handsome and you're ghost hunters? They're another, they're a couple of Justin Tuckers, dude. That's who they are.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  You can't even see bangs in the dark. There's no reason to even have good hair like that.

• 40:51Theo Von?

  I, it's just, dude, bangs, that's an onomatopoeia, bang.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  But, no, I'm talking about hair, man.

• 40:58Theo Von?

  Oh, take me through a little bit more of that. So you moved, so you, so first you, why did you move to Rhode Island? You said you wanted some land?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanted land mainly. I wanted, I wanted some land. I wanted a city that is convenient for travel. And so like PVD is like my Burbank airport, and then Boston's like my LAX if I have to have to have to go direct.

• 41:16Theo Von?

  Okay, so that's Providence and Boston Airport, yeah?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  And then, uh, I wanted some kind of a comedy scene. And Providence has the Comedy Connection there, which is a fucking great A-club. They've got a couple of good theaters there that I'll do like our holiday toy drives at and stuff on the winter time. And then they have a, there's a ton of open mics, there's a bunch of don't tells out there. So like when I'm home and I want to work stuff out, like there's no shortage of stage time at all. So I mean, I kind of just checked all the boxes. It's awesome, dude. It's so peaceful. It's so beautiful. Like it's quaint. It's got, it's got everything I need. Like I said, the airport's nearby, comedy's nearby, Target's eight minutes away.

• 41:47Theo Von?

  How far is it from the airport to your house?

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Seventeen minutes.

• 41:50Theo Von?

  Well, that's good.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not bad at all, dude. And I mean, we're in the cities all the time for work, right? Like we're always, I'm always in New York. I'm always in LA or Miami, Chicago, whatever. Like when I'm not there, I just want peace. Like that's what I actually have.

• 42:03Theo Von?

  What made you pick that? I mean, Rhode Island's just an interesting place.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  No, absolutely.

• 42:07Theo Von?

  You know, it's kind of like, it's kind of romantic. Rhode Island to me has like this like beachy kind of romantic scene, but also like this thuggish sort of scene.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't know how like mob deep it was, dude. I had no, I had no idea Rhode Island was like run by the mob for a while, which is pretty fucking awesome. I was doing shows at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. And this is around the time I was just like, just starting to look for like, maybe I'll get a house someday. My life's starting to change. And I was on Zillow and I found a house like an hour away. And I was like, shit, I would just go check it out before the show's tomorrow. And I went, checked it out, just fell in love with it.

• 42:39Theo Von?

  No.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I mean, totally random. Didn't know anybody there. Couple of my friends have moved out there ever since. They live with me. So it's, it's kind of like a nice little compound.

• 42:46Theo Von?

  Oh, you got friends living with you?

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 42:48Theo Von?

  Have you had to kick anybody out? I don't think, what's that been like? You guys splitting weiner pills out there? What are you guys doing out there?

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Bro, it's like you live there. That's good to hit both on the head is uh, pretty impressive. Yeah. Yes and yes, man. We're rationing it up there, brother.

• 43:01Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, dude. Now I will say this, if the weiner pill factory ever closes, dude, there is gonna be, the market is gonna be hot for those, bro.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Oh my God, it's the new Quaaludes. You think they get better with age? I didn't even think about that. I'm gonna sit on a couple. I'm gonna put some in my safe.

• 43:16Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  In a little time capsule.

• 43:18Theo Von?

  Give one to your grandson one day, huh? Hey, eat this. Oh, your diaper won't fit.

• 43:25Theo Von?

  That's ridiculous, dude.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Dude, I kinda love living with the homies. It's, it's nice. I mean, the house is big enough that like my boy Kyle lives upstairs. I live downstairs. Like, there's days I don't even see him.

• 43:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  We'll meet, we'll meet together in the kitchen for like an Uncrustable around 4pm. That's about it, dude. It's so peaceful. It's just chill.

• 43:42Theo Von?

  When you're there, like what types of things you get involved in? Do you actually have enough time to take off when you're there? Or what's that like for you right now? I know you just said it. I saw you guys were filming and you were filming in Vancouver. How was that?

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in Vancouver for like seven months last year.

• 43:56Theo Von?

  No way.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Oh dude, within a week I had to move. Like, I didn't think I was gonna get this role at all. And then they called and were like, "Hey, you, you got it. Need you to move to Vancouver." And I was like, "Awesome." It was Friday. They're like, "Need you there Monday." And I was like, "Oh, okay." I mean, things could happen that fast in this career.

• 44:10Theo Von?

  Did you have touring dates that had to cancel and everything?

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Um, I only had to cancel a couple for film dates, but luckily they let me keep as many of them as I could. Which is important to me.

• 44:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, for sure. Matt Rife among 10 cast in Netflix's FTX series. And this FTX, it's about crypto. It's about the cryptocurrency world, right? Is that Paul Rudd?

• 44:28Speaker 01

  No, it's not Paul Rudd. Which one, which one do you think is Paul Rudd? Which one of those?

• 44:34Theo Von?

  Bottom, middle?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  But, you think that's Paul Rudd?

• 44:37Theo Von?

  It, does it look like him to anybody else or just me?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  That's gonna be just you.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Not that ch- I wish Paul Rudd was in this. He's a fu- he's fucking great.

• 44:48Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  You thought that was that guy?

• 44:51Theo Von?

  I don't know, dude. I need some help.

• 44:56Theo Von?

  I'm still fine.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  No, don't sing your way out of it, man.

• 44:59Theo Von?

  Sorry, dude. Oh solo mio. We can't go.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Your way out.

• 45:09Theo Von?

  I'm just saying, bro. Things happen sometimes visually for people. I think some of those wiener pills got friggin', got my optics off, dude.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  You got some side effects.

• 45:18Theo Von?

  You got some side effects.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Some lingers.

• 45:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, bro. Can't see. Yeah. Imagine you took so many wiener pills, you just don't, the side effect is you can't get celebrities right anymore.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  I don't think that's that bad.

• 45:31Theo Von?

  You eat like Beetlejuice, you're like, "Hey, what's up, Shaq?"

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Dude, I met Shaq by the way for the first time.

• 45:37Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  I did a thing with uh, with Burt for the Netflix festival. He's, he really is that fucking big. He's gigantic, man. Also, one of the best senses of humors of like a non-comedian I've fucking ever met.

• 45:48Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Dude, he's funny, loves a good joke about himself, man. You know, Burt was doing the whole uh, you know, the whole shirt take off thing backstage for this promo video and Shaq took his shirt off and I was like,

• 46:00Theo Von?

  He did?

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 46:01Theo Von?

  Is he jacked?

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Dude, look how ripped.

• 46:04Theo Von?

  Yeah. Man, sometimes I like to uh, I like to reminisce about summertime. Summertime, baby, it was hot. And mom would try to make the best out of things though and she said, one day she said, I'm gonna take y'all to see the world's biggest anthill. About seventy miles from us. And so we sat there and we weren't really excited, but we was curious. And sometimes that was enough in the summertime to get you out of the house. And mom didn't know, but I'd snuck me a little deviled egg in my pocket. So I could have me a little snack. I'd snuck a little DE down in my pocket with a piece of ice next to it, so I could keep it cool in there.

• 46:45Theo Von?

  And we got to that anthill and it was, I mean, you couldn't even imagine how big it was. You need, you needed two people to imagine it at the same time to even, to have the imagination of it. It took two imaginations. And they had all types of ants in there. They had ants. They had uh, step ants. Uh, ants once removed. They had cant's. They had ants that, that just couldn't do it anymore. You know, they just had, they was dealing with impairments or high blood pressure. And we were about ninety-five minutes into the tour. We'd been, you know, it was coming around the east end of that anthill and, and I'd been bit probably twenty, thirty times by now and,

• 47:29Theo Von?

  and they had a little rest area, a little bathroom area. I said, I'm gonna sneak off behind these toilets and have me that deviled egg, baby, have me a little cut of that DE that I had in my pocket. And I reached in there.

• 47:41Theo Von?

  Those ants had picked my pocket clean, brother. I don't know how much devil was in that egg, but it wasn't enough to keep those ants away. So we had some times out there, man. And they were challenging and they were exciting and they were adventurous and that's summertime, you know? Anyway, cheers to Mountain Dew. Tastes like America. Tastes like summer. So you were up there in Vancouver, you, was it an enjoyable experience? Vancouver's awesome.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Vancouver's beautiful. I had a good time with that. Being a part of like that pedigree of a project is awesome. Anthony Boyle and Julia Garner are the leads of it and they're just such fucking great actors.

• 48:25Theo Von?

  Really?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  If they're not nominated for an award for the show, I mean, it's robbery. They're so, so talented to like get to like learn from people like that day after day for seven months was just an awesome opportunity. It was so hard, though. Like the dialogue was just not something I was familiar with. Like it's all about crypto shit. So like every line, I'm having to like Google what I'm even saying.

• 48:45Theo Von?

  Oh, really? Was that intense?

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. So obviously memorizing the lines was a lot more difficult than just like a day to day conversation. Yeah, but it was a good challenge. I love, I love acting. I want to do more of it for sure.

• 48:55Theo Von?

  Yeah?

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 48:56Theo Von?

  But the thing about acting is it takes away from that stand-up. It takes away from that stage time.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  It definitely does.

• 49:03Theo Von?

  It's hard to go, because if you have those long days, were you having long days?

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I mean, you're on set for sometimes 17 hour day.

• 49:09Theo Von?

  You can't go do stand-up at the end of that day.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  No, but so, I mean, most of the seven months I was filming Monday through Friday and then Saturday morning, I'd get on a plane to go do a show Saturday night.

• 49:18Theo Von?

  Got it.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Fly to the next place Sunday and then I'd have to take like a red eye after the show Sunday night to be on set at like 6 a.m. Monday morning. So there were some weeks where I'm showing up on like no sleep. But if you want to do all, if you want to do it all, like that's the price to pay for it. But also with stand-up, like I've been doing it for, I mean, literally half my life. And I'm so like blessed to be in the position that I'm in right now. Like it's fucking insane, the opportunities I've got to have over the last couple of years that there starts to become.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  More of a question of like, what now with stand up? Like I've sold out Madison Square Garden, I've done the Hollywood Bowl. It's like, what is supposed to be after that? Like, for me, that's when like the fun of just like the creative mind is what kind of has to propel you. Like, I still have like these funny thoughts and these stories that I want to tell. Like, you have to just enjoy doing stand up. Like, you find something to chase, but it's not always a venue. Sometimes it's just expression.

• 50:17Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, I think it's interesting you say that. Like, I've been at a spot right now where like, like, we had, like, my friend and I made a movie that we did that we made ourselves, right? That came out and we did the whole process. And then we just taped a comedy special. We did, like, there's been some things that have just come to an end, right? And touring. Um, and now, and that's all finished right now. Like, for like, the first time in 20 years, I don't have a tour date on the books. And I don't ever have to have one if I don't want to.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  How does that make you feel?

• 50:45Theo Von?

  It's, it's, it's a lot of things. It's been like, I've had a little bit of depression. I didn't know what it was from. I think some of it was from, I don't, there's not a ton to do, like, there's podcasting.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:57Theo Von?

  But I haven't really felt like, I don't know, I haven't felt a lot of motivation. And I don't know if some of it's because like, um, there's just not a ton to do, like.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  I mean, do you feel fulfilled in that field?

• 51:11Theo Von?

  Sometimes I feel like, well, what do I, like, yeah, I think part of it is like, yeah, well, what do you, what do I want to do now? What if I, did I just start stand up like 20 years ago and I've just been doing it and like? And then now, what do I want to, you know? I want to keep doing it. I do know that I want to keep doing it. I don't know if I want to get on stage like right now.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:28Theo Von?

  But there is part of me that's like, yeah, well, what else do you want to do? What else do you, you know? I think I kind of wish that there was like a, like a family aspect in my life right now, like wife and children. But that's not there, so it's like, that's okay. It's just like, you know, you gotta wait till that comes along. But I do think there's some like, um, like, having patience with, like, not the craziest days.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:50Theo Von?

  And that's okay. And what's going to be next? And I don't know, right? I think having patience with, I don't know. Is kinda tough for me.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  No, it's very hard. I mean, it's fear of the unknown, especially when you're used to working for twenty years, you're waking up day after day trying to create opportunity for yourself. Whether it's a tour, whether it's filming something or producing something, developing something. Like, I can't take a vacation. If I take three days off, I haven't performed stand-up in two weeks, I feel like I've forgotten everything. I've been going crazy. I'm only home for like two to three days at a time. When I'm there, after the second day, I'm like, fuck, I feel like I need to be doing something. When I don't, like, it's okay to, like, take a break and just be healthy and, you know, be where your feet are at for a little bit.

• 52:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think that's the tough part for me right now a little bit. And then I think some of it's asking God, like, well, what is, you know, like, does God want me to be doing what, you know, or just like, I think, you know, I go to that place of prayer for like, yeah, where, you know, help me figure out what I, what do I want to do? Cause I'm not feeling like a ton of like, um, I just don't know, that's the thing. And so it's just kind of interesting, you know?

• 52:58Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's totally fine, man.

• 52:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's just hard to be like.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It's incredibly hard, man. When you've been chasing something for so long and then you feel like you've, accomplish isn't the right word, but like you at least got to a place of comfortability to where you don't need to be killing yourself every single day.

• 53:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  It's hard, man. From going from a hundred to zero or two, you know?

• 53:16Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  It's hard to coast.

• 53:18Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's hard and you start to, I mean, all the little things come in like, well, if, am I doing enough or I'm gonna fall off or these things are, I have fallen off. Like, all, and some of that's all just bull, it's all, it's all bullshit. It's all just whatever.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:30Theo Von?

  But all those little things kinda come in and you start, you, you put each one on the scale of you and be like, what weight does this really have? And sometimes it jumps on the scale itself, some of these fears or things and you don't even know it and you're under the weight of it before you realize, oh, I didn't even put this there, this just kinda showed up.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  How much of it is ego? You know what I mean?

• 53:47Theo Von?

  Oh, dude.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Like, how much can I put that aside and how much is actually important to me?

• 53:50Theo Von?

  That's the biggest thing is, yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  No, it's so hard.

• 53:52Theo Von?

  How much of this is ego too? And what, yeah, what's important, what do I need? And then what is my voice best, how could my voice best even be used moving forward?

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:01Theo Von?

  For myself and for like anything, you know? All, all that kinda stuff. Does that make sense to you?

• 54:06Speaker 01

  That makes perfect sense. I can't thank you enough for even understanding what that feels like. Like, most people just don't get that. There is a fear of slowing down, for sure. Like, I mean, and I have slowed down a ton. And we were doing forty to fifty shows a month between, like, twenty twenty four to the beginning of twenty twenty five. I mean, six to seven shows, uh, six to seven nights a week, two shows a night, dude.

• 54:29Theo Von?

  Your schedule was scary, dude. I remember, we spoke one time, you were having a sleep, you were having sleeping disorder?

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, you called about that. I really appreciate that, by the way.

• 54:37Theo Von?

  You have a sleeping disorder?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  I have horrible insomnia, like, I, I literally cannot fall asleep without, like, the assistance of something, yeah.

• 54:44Theo Von?

  What, so what, what, how'd you even, eh, I mean, I guess it's easy to figure out, but did you notice what was keeping you up? Were you drinking coffee late in the day?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  No, no, I don't do any caffeine at all, like, never, never have, can't, cannot do it. My brain just, like, you know when you're about to fall asleep and then there's just, like, the, the light switch just goes off? Your brain's just off. Now you are, like, unconscious?

• 55:04Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  I can't fucking flip the switch. I can't do, I can get so close, my brain just cannot do it. I'm, I'm not even, like, thinking about things. I'm not up anxious about anything. I'm not worried about anything. There's not anything in particular in my life that I'm worried about. Just can't do it. And I've been to sleep doctors, I've got therapists. What's that?

• 55:23Theo Von?

  Did you go to sleep doctors?

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and they all, I mean, the problem is, they all just wanna, they, they wanna just prescribe you medication, but I'm like, do I? That makes me feel even crazier. That makes, to make me feel like I have to have help to do the most basic human thing feels fucking crazy. So, I mean, I do take something that does help me get to sleep, doesn't keep me asleep, but I still don't sleep well. But they, most of my doctors think it's probably just like an underlying anxiety, but I'm like, I don't wanna take anxiety medication. I don't wanna.

• 55:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, and are you feeling, laying there all horny or whatever, or are you just laying there, like, your brain running?

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Way past that, dude. My dick is, like, fucking tapped out, dude.

• 55:59Theo Von?

  You're done?

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm empty, bro. Falling asleep with fucking Lego hands, dog. Yeah, man.

• 56:06Theo Von?

  What are you saying?

• 56:08Speaker 01

  You never jerk off to try to fall asleep?

• 56:09Theo Von?

  Oh, yes, dude, yeah. What are you talking about? Probably less than thirty hours ago, I did it.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  We shook hands as soon as I came in here, man.

• 56:18Theo Von?

  Now, I have showered once since then.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  I mean, you ever do, you ever accidentally get a wake-up nut, though, when you're trying to fall asleep?

• 56:24Theo Von?

  Where

• 56:25Speaker 01

  That boosts the energy up on accident.

• 56:26Theo Von?

  Like, what do you mean?

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Like, if you jerk off in the beginning of the day.

• 56:30Theo Von?

  Tell me about that. What is that wake up nut?

• 56:31Speaker 01

  A wake up nut is kinda like.

• 56:33Theo Von?

  Tell me about that.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  I imagine it's like a shot of B12. It's like getting into a cold plunge. Like, there's just something that kinda shocks your system and you're like, okay, I'm ready to tackle the day.

• 56:42Theo Von?

  So you wake up and do a nut?

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Sometimes. It depends on the day. You know what I mean? Depends on the weather.

• 56:47Theo Von?

  Wow, really?

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. If it's sunny out, I'm not gonna jerk off in the gloom.

• 56:52Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, dude. I don't know. I'm more like emo. I think I'm that dude. I'm that Tim Burton nut monkey, dude. I think I'm more like, you know, it's cloudy out. We got a 40% chance of nut, bruh.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  See, that feels depressing to me. Like, my dick's not gonna give it its all.

• 57:07Theo Von?

  Well, dude, my dick gave up. I don't think my dick ever even wanted to be a part, me and them in a partnership. But, yeah, I agree. But on a sunny day, I'm jerking off. The Lord has blessed me with this beautiful sun and I'm gonna be like, oh, let me show you what I can do.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Just add a little something to it. You know what I mean? No, I wanna be walking on sunshine, dog.

• 57:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, I guess you're right, bruh.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I wanna add, I'm trying to ride that high.

• 57:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're right, brother. There's different avenues to it, for sure, dude.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  First off, like, if you jerk off after, like, I don't know, 7:30 PM, that's more of a downer, I feel like. That's supposed to relax you.

• 57:40Theo Von?

  That's to close it down.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 57:42Theo Von?

  Well, what did they tell you? What did they tell? Like, what was like, did you have any, did you try a CPAP machine? Did they do all that kinda stuff, too?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it's not a problem like that, dude. Honestly, they can't figure out what the problem is, which drives me fucking crazy. I'm like, what am I, an anomaly? I'm like the one person in the world who has whatever problem I have with my brain doesn't seem possible.

• 58:01Theo Von?

  Right, like, you're like a wake squat or something?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  A what?

• 58:05Theo Von?

  A wake squat. You're like Bigfoot, but it's like for like somebody that won't sleep or whatever. Like, have you seen him? He doesn't sleep or whatever.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  I think I have whatever Michael Jackson had. Maybe I have vitiligo or something. Maybe that's keeping me up.

• 58:15Theo Von?

  Does that keep you up?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 58:17Theo Von?

  Dude, I just saw this thing the other day about when Michael Jackson went to Brazil. Can you bring that up? Dude, he did a lot of things that, uh,

• 58:25Theo Von?

  he like challenged the status quo. Like, he wanted to go to Brazil to the favelas to shoot. Which video was it?

• 58:34Theo Von?

  They don't care about us right here. A song by the American singer Michael Jackson, initial release.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Man, he was a beautiful Asian woman.

• 58:43Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. I saw him one time when I was on stage. Um, we used to do the, there was a comedy club in Westwood. At, I can't even remember it now. It was like, Steve Byrne was there all the time, Adam Hunter, like a lot of like great like comics um, in the LA scene. Uh, Dane would come in sometimes. But out the window, I was on stage one time and out the window next door, there was a Oz costume shop, A H H H S, like ah, and uh.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Onomatopoeia.

• 59:14Theo Von?

  Yeah. Onomatopoeia dude. And he was uh, and he pulled up in a, with some security guards and got out and went in there. They, it was like after hours, they let him go into the costume shop.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  No way. Yeah, you would open up the store for Michael Jackson.

• 59:26Theo Von?

  I'm on stage and I see, and I know he lived not far away and it was the craziest thing. I'm like, oh, that's Michael Jackson. And I'm on stage saying, cause I can see out this window on stage and the audience can't see. It's from the second story.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Oh, they think you're making it up.

• 59:39Theo Von?

  Yeah, they get, you know, like, you're a [BLEEP] it's some guy yelling. I'm like, whoa.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Just cause I saw Michael Jackson? He's really there. It's not my fucking sleep paralysis demon.

• 59:48Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, yeah. So people will just call you just that for anything now.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 59:56Theo Von?

  What were we talking about?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Sleep and then.

• 59:59Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. What were some of the modalities that they, cause, cause I'm assuming you went pretty deep down this hole trying to figure this out.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:06Theo Von?

  Cause you had to take a break, right? Right?

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I had to cancel, I had to cancel shows and um.

• 1:00:10Theo Von?

  You had how many doctors for it?

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  I had like six doctors at some point. All doing different things and different categories or whatever and.

• 1:00:17Theo Von?

  Like what were they, were they taking your blood? Like what were they doing?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Blood tests, they check, they check all that kind of stuff. I was doing the scans on my brain or whatever, trying to measure like what parts of it don't do and don't turn off, that kind of thing. Apparently I'm normal, but I just cannot sleep, dude. It's awful. But yeah, I did have to take a couple of weeks off. I like passed out on the way to a show. And people were fucking pissed, dude. I mean, it was like an hour before the show was supposed to start, but like I hadn't slept for like five days.

• 1:00:44Theo Von?

  What was going on? Like, were you manic?

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Oh, incredibly, incredibly, dude. I mean, I'm up like crying between the hours of like 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. Just because I'm like, I just want to go to sleep. I'm exhausted and I cannot, I cannot shut my brain off. I'm like journaling to like my fucking dead grandfather. I'm like, hey, man, send some sleep, dog. Something. Jerking off, back to journaling, jerking off, back to doing everything I can. And I was heading to the show and I like, I like nearly like fainted and like fell into the bushes. And I was like, I cannot do this show. Like I'm, I will not make it. Like I'm not even gonna do, I wouldn't even be able to sit down on the stool. So we had to cancel the show. I'm, I'm laying in the hospital. I'm getting like death threats. And people like in bars in Indiana being like, we hope Matt Wright fucking dies. And I'm like, I'm going to, dude.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, people did not care, but it was bad.

• 1:01:32Theo Von?

  That's like Morgan Wallen just had a, they had a weather issue for his show.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  I saw that, but it's like, he's not, he's not a meteorologist. It's not up to him.

• 1:01:39Theo Von?

  Yeah, he's doing the best that he can and people just, they won't cut him a break.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Um, well, imagine it was like a strong winds or something like that, that I think they were.

• 1:01:47Theo Von?

  Well, he has a big set and it's like, you know, once, if something falls, it's.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Bro, a tornado touches down in the middle of a concert and he didn't cancel it?

• 1:01:54Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  He's done, dude.

• 1:01:56Theo Von?

  It's, I think.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  People die at the concert.

• 1:01:58Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  It's over.

• 1:01:58Theo Von?

  You can't be on stage, you know? Get some, and like people are getting hit by lightning.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  Of course. Yeah, twisters touching down, yeah, of course.

• 1:02:07Theo Von?

  Yeah. That's crazy. There's a twist just throwing people up on stage.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:02:12Theo Von?

  It was like people are passing by you in the air.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  You, you can't please everybody, man. He, he would, he would have been.

• 1:02:17Theo Von?

  Sand in my, people are just flying. People are wishing they had sand in their boots because they're fucking would be anchored down better. It's like, cut the guy some damn slack, man. He just wants to be, he just wants to do his best.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  He's fucking awesome, dude. You know, uh, I had, I had Kyle, um, dress up as him for the, for the, uh, AMAs. AMAs, is that what it was for? Yeah, cause they had me presenting and, um, I was doing.

• 1:02:42Theo Von?

  Kyle's here, he's sitting here with us, one of the best photographers.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, he does all my videography, he does all the clips and everything.

• 1:02:46Theo Von?

  I couldn't hire him because you had him.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Well, sorry.

• 1:02:49Theo Von?

  Well, if something happens to you.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  You could outbid me.

• 1:02:52Theo Von?

  Ooh, I guess, well.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  You're up on the block, boy.

• 1:02:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, now look, I'm not saying I'd get one, I'll make sure I get a friend with him.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Well, I wanted to.

• 1:03:01Theo Von?

  They say you can't have them be alone, they're kinda like goats. We'll see about it, Cal.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  They had, they had me presenting for it, and they had me presenting in a, a country category, so I just, I wanted to do some kind of bit for it, and the bit was to basically get everybody to be like, oh my god, Morgan Wallen is here, and I-

• 1:03:15Theo Von?

  Where was that at?

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  This was the AMAs in Vegas, so he shaved his beard completely down, he had just the mustache, and he had this big old mullet wig with a little hat down, he looked just enough like him. The bit was supposed to be that like, the camera goes to him, it's so obviously not Morgan Wallen, and that was gonna be the bit, but he looked so much like him, the people were like, okay, cool, Morgan Wallen's here. Like, it completely fucking failed.

• 1:03:38Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Cause he looked so much like him, yeah.

• 1:03:40Theo Von?

  Is that online?

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, I think I posted it on my Instagram, I'm sure, and all the country pages and stuff picked it up and everything. They were like, oh, Matt Riff takes a dig at Morgan Wallen, I'm like, that's the complete opposite. I'm saying he's definitely too fucking good to be here. He is too good to be here, he's selling out the moon, dog.

• 1:03:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, that's hilarious.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  He gets snubbed on so many of these awards, I don't get it.

• 1:04:00Theo Von?

  I don't think he cares about it.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, what is, what does it matter? If, you know, you know you're the entertainer of the year, who the fuck else is doing multiple stadium shows?

• 1:04:09Theo Von?

  I agree, it's like, wow, what, this, it's just for you, you know?

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:04:14Theo Von?

  It's just-

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  We were talking about ego earlier, right?

• 1:04:16Theo Von?

  Right, it's just for the ego of these companies, a lot of these things, you know, they wanna keep this idea that some select people get to decide who the, the entertainer of the year is, it's like, let the numbers decide.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 1:04:29Theo Von?

  You know?

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Couldn't agree more.

• 1:04:30Theo Von?

  It's like with the, they're trying to give a podcasting awards or something earlier, I think this is this year or last year, and like, do you wanna be in the award, you have to pay to be, you know, your-

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  You gotta pay to be in consideration?

• 1:04:42Theo Von?

  They got you, they gave you a nomination, but then you have to pay to be, uh- To see if you, if you, you'll be like one of the top five or whatever.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  That's so weird.

• 1:04:51Theo Von?

  And it was like, first of all.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Pay us to nominate you.

• 1:04:54Theo Von?

  It was, that was part of the edge of it, right? You have to pay to continue to be nominated. It's like, um, and I can't remember who it was, but it was like, uh, but that was part of it. And then they gave the award to like, I think it was Amy Poehler's podcast, which is great, right? She's one of the most talented entertainers that there are. But if you're not giving that award to Joe Rogan, then what are you, what are we even doing?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, he wasn't even nominated for it because he didn't self bit himself.

• 1:05:21Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 1:05:23Theo Von?

  But it's like, if you're not giving it to him, like, then what are we, we're just, then we're playing some game of yours.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:05:29Theo Von?

  It's not a real thing.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  So you're playing algorithm in an award show.

• 1:05:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah. So it's like, I think a lot of people see through all that shit. Like, I don't, like, I want, give me something that's real, that's fine. But I don't want something that's some made, I don't want to live in some made up type of thing where you decide who gets, who gets to be this thing.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  And that's why I think touring is so fucking awesome because it's totally in the hands of like your fans, right? It's, it is literally a physical,

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  it's a, it's a physical, um, what's what I'm looking for? Fuck. It's, um, it's proving that you have a connection with the people, right? Like those people are paying to come see you. That's harder money that they saved up. They got a babysitter. This is their anniversary, whatever it is. Those people are coming to see, that, like, that success speaks for itself. If you can move people to come see you in real life, what does it matter what eight people voted in the middle of Hollywood or Nashville or whatever it is?

• 1:06:24Theo Von?

  Yeah, I agree, dude.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Like, that's the true success, I think.

• 1:06:29Theo Von?

  Just let it be what it is. You know, why, you know? I don't know. I think I also have like, I get some angst towards some of that Hollywood stuff. So I think I,

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:06:39Theo Von?

  I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about some of it. And I don't even know why all the time. Let's show this clip though, right here. And yeah, dude, Morgan could go, Morgan could literally go back in time before, before people even knew him and he, people were like, I heard he's good, you know? He could go to like 40 years ago. And people will somehow be like, yeah, I heard he's, I heard that guy was good.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:07:00Theo Von?

  Bro, look at this right here, dude. Is this AI? You get accused of being AI a lot?

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  All the time. All the time. I'm so AI.

• 1:07:08Theo Von?

  Bro, you are AI.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm in Rhode Island right now.

• 1:07:12Theo Von?

  What the heck? I never even realized it, dude. Dude, you're like my fucking hot lesbian aunt that's AI, dude.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  You have a hot lesbian aunt?

• 1:07:22Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  I'll turn her out, dog. Let's fucking go.

• 1:07:25Theo Von?

  I don't know. You guys look too similar, though. Let me, uh, let me show this award show part.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  I think we can all agree that the current state of country music, some pretty good hands. Right? I mean, just tonight alone, we've seen Riley Green,

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  Keith Urban,

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  and actually making his very first AMA appearance, Morgan Wallen is here.

• 1:07:50Theo Von?

  That's crazy, dude.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Morgan Fallen, dog. He's my little off-brand.

• 1:07:56Theo Von?

  That's crazy.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:07:59Theo Von?

  That's hilarious, bro.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we first, we realized he looked like this when he accidentally shaved his beard in Europe one time. We were fucking tearing him apart. I called him Fail Earnhardt.

• 1:08:06Theo Von?

  You did?

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Theo Von?

  You accidentally shaved yours, Kyle? Yeah. That's hilarious.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  He nicked a little piece of it and then shaved the whole thing off. We were like, oh, I had to fire him for like three weeks. I can't be around you right now. You got a vulnerable neck.

• 1:08:19Theo Von?

  That's, oh, yeah, dude, that's crazy, bro. Dude, that's funny, bro.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a decent bit, but then almost everybody when I got home, we're like, oh, no, we actually thought it was Morgan Wallen. I was like, well, that wasn't supposed to be the bit, literally at all. It's pretty, I mean, he's wearing my tour, he's wearing my tour cutoff jean jacket, a red clay strays hat.

• 1:08:39Theo Von?

  Uh, people can't see that good, dude. I'll say this, if they, yeah, you had a couple of too many wiener pills, your vision gets bad.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  A lot of people thought he was Paul Rudd. A lot of people, a lot of people were saying it.

• 1:08:53Theo Von?

  All right.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Voila!

• 1:08:55Theo Von?

  Voila!

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Am I able to get one more?

• 1:09:00Theo Von?

  Yeah, let's get another water. Can we get one?

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 1:09:04Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Thanks, brother.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  Hey, we got that Michael Jackson thing here. I think I found it.

• 1:09:08Theo Von?

  Okay, um, oh yeah, this looks like it, let me see. In 1996, Michael Jackson shot a music video in Rio de Janeiro favelas. The world didn't know that this historic shoot was only possible thanks to the approval of a drug trafficker.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:09:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, the government said it was too unsafe for him to come, but he wanted to come and be around the people. Let me see. Rio de Janeiro, 1996, Spike Lee's camera pans across the hills of Dona Marta, a favela clinging to the city's slopes. Michael Jackson has come to shoot his video, but the setting, a far cry from Hollywood Studios, is no ordinary set. The governor of Rio is against it. The police refuse to set foot in Dona Marta, and yet the cameras roll. That had to be pretty brave, bro.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. I mean, to be that loved.

• 1:09:53Theo Von?

  Did it say that they looked out for him?

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  I would imagine so.

• 1:09:57Theo Von?

  So, when Michael Jackson arrives in Rio to shoot in a favela, it's not the mayor or the governor who has the final say. It's Marchino VP. The man hunted by police is also the one who ensures the king of pop's safety. So, uh, he was the head of one of the most powerful criminal factions in the city. Charismatic and ruthless, Marchino had established himself in a world where hierarchy is carved out, carved in fear and cemented by weapons. What set him apart from other hill bosses was a strange intellectual depth, almost unsettling for a man at war with the established order. It's just pretty wild that he went and shot that there.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  It feels like he could have did it in Burbank.

• 1:10:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, it does. But I think he, why did we even start talking about this? Do you remember?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Not a clue. Oh, I just mentioned that I was wondering what my sleep problems were. I had the same thing that Michael Jackson has. You said, "Hold on a second."

• 1:10:48Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, sorry.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  And we went on a 15-minute loop.

• 1:10:52Theo Von?

  Uh, go back a little bit, the tense shoot, I just want to see that part. Uh, the governor of Rio is staunchly opposed. Brazil is still dreaming of hosting the 2004 Olympics. There's no way to let the world see what's hidden behind the postcard beaches to show the poverty, the drugs, the bullet-ridden walls. It would be bad PR.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 1:11:11Theo Von?

  He went and shot it there, anyway.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  That's so gangster.

• 1:11:14Theo Von?

  He did stuff like that, dude.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  The deal is clear, no money, change his hands, no one to the table bribes, just an agreement.

• 1:11:23Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:11:26Theo Von?

  Yeah, just kinda wild, look at that, dude. Just to show up there, be that close to people just who like...

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Would never have access to you, you know what I mean?

• 1:11:35Theo Von?

  Right, would never have access to you and also there's probably, you know, you get in some dangerous neighborhoods, it's dangerous.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, it's not like the people he's getting approval from are like, nobody's gonna fuck with you. We would be the people to fuck with you.

• 1:11:45Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Nobody's gonna fuck with you.

• 1:11:46Theo Von?

  That's the thing.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 1:11:47Theo Von?

  That's awesome, bro. That, that, that's what I'm talking about. That's the people you, like, if you're for the, if you're with the people, you're with the people.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:56Theo Von?

  You know, it doesn't matter what these other like little, you know, fancy people say about this or that, I don't care, you know? Say this guy is the, the number one award winner, this guy's this, or whatever, you know? The truth is the truth.

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:12:10Theo Von?

  You know?

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  There's no replacement for real life.

• 1:12:11Theo Von?

  Yeah. Anyway, sorry, I feel kinda, I don't know why I feel kinda animated about that.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 1:12:17Theo Von?

  Um.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  It's passion.

• 1:12:19Theo Von?

  Take me on a little bit more of, so, so you bought this Ed and Lorraine's house, ta- take me on the house that you bought and, and what you guys have done with it. I know there was like articles going around that, um, you guys were doing like, you guys had turned it into a haunted Airbnb where people could go and stay?

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  It is essentially that, yeah. We, um, we, we, we were approached by, um, by Ed Lorraine Warren's family, um, that they were going to sell the house and we were the first people that they wanted to offer it to. And obviously, we were fucking psyched about it. I mean, we have so much respect and love for their family and what they mean to the paranormal community. Um, so I mean, to get to be a part of arguably the most prominent piece of paranormal history on earth, being the Annabelle doll in the Warren's house is, is fucking awesome, dude. Um, and we got the house like as is, like we have all their old clothes, all their old tape recordings.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  I mean, there's like, there's hundreds and hundreds of old recordings and letters from cases that never got turned into movies and TV shows and stuff like that. And it's so cool, man. I mean, the house itself, museum aside, is fucking terrifyingly haunted, but there's like such a warmth to it, like regardless of what they did and who they were and what they were around all the time, like, it still feels like such a cozy family home. So, we've, we've opened that up to the public to be able to be stayed in as an Airbnb. And it's attached to the museum, which holds, oh god, I think it's something like 700 artifacts or something like that in the museum as well as the, uh, the Annabelle doll.

• 1:13:51Theo Von?

  And take me through like, uh, just a brief synopsis of the family and the Annabelle doll. For people that don't know.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, Ed and Lorraine were the most famous ghost hunters, pretty much in the, the, the history of it. I mean, they, they helped, I mean, I guess documented, I'm gonna say a few hundred families.

• 1:14:08Theo Von?

  And they were spousal, they were married?

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:14:11Theo Von?

  Dude, that-

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, she was a psychic medium and Ed was, uh, was, was an author and, um, they, uh, they put out a lot, a lot of good books. And, um, but they, they helped a lot of fucking people and they, they're, I mean, they are the family behind like the largest scary movie franchises in the world. Between Annabelle Doll, the Conjuring movies, Amityville Horror, all that good stuff.

• 1:14:31Theo Von?

  And they, uh, how they help a lot of people, you said they helped a lot of people?

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, a lot of people dealt with like possessions and haunted homes and a lot of haunted objects and everything. And they would go to help these families with either casting out the spirits, um, via exorcisms. Sometimes it was taking an item like the Annabelle doll off of the family's hands and putting it in a more secure place, stuff like that.

• 1:14:49Theo Von?

  So you have the Annabelle doll now?

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's pretty crazy.

• 1:14:53Theo Von?

  Bro.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  It's a pretty white thing to own.

• 1:14:56Theo Von?

  Yeah, that is, huh?

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, do you believe in ghosts?

• 1:15:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, I believe in ghosts, but I get scared about it because it's like, you know, if you go summon ghosts, if you summon like, if you look at it as like the devil, I think there's different ways to look at it. If you look at it as like a spiritual thing, like maybe something that's in between here and there. Um, but if you look at it as like satanic, you're trying to summon Satan, then that stuff is a little scary to me.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I don't fuck with that stuff at all, regardless of like there being a demon literally attached to that doll. Like, I don't fuck with it. I'm not hanging out with the doll. That was the crazy thing. People, I mean, that, that's a very passionate community and it's one that I respect and I'm happy to be a part of. But people thought I was like, because I'm a comedian, that I was gonna like disrespect this doll. They thought I was gonna turn this house into a fucking frat house and Annabelle was just gonna be crowd surfing like a stretched out blow up doll.

• 1:15:44Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, I could see that dude. People always wanna like, think about stuff like that. Did you do anything cool with Annabelle? Like, were you guys able to even like have her, like bring her out to have like a tea or something?

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  No, god, no. We would never let her out of that box, ever. We've only had to move the box a couple of times and I, even I don't fucking touch that.

• 1:15:59Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  I let Elton and we have, uh, we have a couple of priests that help with that.

• 1:16:03Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. I'm terrified of it.

• 1:16:07Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm never there, by the way. Like, I'm not at that. People thought I was living at the house with Annabelle doll. I'm fucking never there.

• 1:16:14Theo Von?

  You're not?

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  No. I check on Annabelle, like I look for racism on Twitter. I'm like, good, it's still there.

• 1:16:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  If it's gonna exist, it might as well be like contained, you know what I mean? Nowhere to find it.

• 1:16:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Theo Von?

  Wow, bro.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty awesome, man. Um, it's so fascinating to me.

• 1:16:30Theo Von?

  Do you feel like, do you wanna create more stuff around like horror genre? Like, is that something you start to feel like? Cause you said you're kind of at this space where it's like, you're kind of thinking, well, yeah, what else is possible and what else would I like to do and what direction?

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on the entertainment side of things, like, I would love to develop some kind of like a horror project, whether it be a TV show or a film or something like that. But I mean, we're also even, uh, expanding in that space. Like, we're, we're moving, um, the museum and expanding it to a location in Salem. Um, Salem, Massachusetts, this, I think it's gonna be this September or August that it's gonna open up. Um, so, I mean, there's a couple other, uh, properties that we could potentially be buying as well. So, I mean, I, I, I'm so fascinated by it. Like, it, it is so new to me that I, I think it's very exciting. It's cool just to learn, learn about it. And this, this creates a lot of opportunity for people to educate themselves on that world. People are fascinated by it, but they don't know a lot about it. So, this is kind of like firsthand experience.

• 1:17:26Theo Von?

  Have you had, like, a, like, a, a supernatural experience of your own?

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude. Of all the investigations and stuff we've done, I mean, I've seen and heard so many things, like, I couldn't possibly explain. I mean, I've heard my name be said, like, I've, I've, I, I like EVPs, which is like the voice recordings the most. Like, to me, that's the most fascinating because, I mean, it's audible, it feel, it sounds tangible. You're getting a direct response to a question you ask. Like, to me, that feels so undeniable. Like, I'm in the room, I know who else is in here, I know this hasn't been tampered with in any kind of way. To me, that feels so, that's close to undeniable as possible.

• 1:18:01Theo Von?

  Was there someone you were trying to talk to? Or was it?

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Um, I'm trying to think of the most prominent one. Um, we were in, um, I think this was Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio, I believe.

• 1:18:15Theo Von?

  Shout out Mansfield.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Shout out Mansfield. That's where, actually, they filmed Shawshank Redemption.

• 1:18:18Theo Von?

  Nuh-uh.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's fucking, it's a really, really cool space. Um, we were in what used to be the old library. We were asking, like, you know, what, they're like, what, what this room used to be. Hear loud, clear as day, "Library."

• 1:18:30Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fucking terrifying. We were doing some in, in, at Lorraine Warren's house, in the tunnel that goes from the house to the museum. Uh, our friend was in there asking, like, you know, "Do you mean us harm?" And you hear, "If possible." It's crazy shit like that. But it's still so fascinating to me. Like, I, I, I'm passionate about it because on a spiritual level, it- It helps kind of reassure me that there is something else. You know what I mean? Like I, when my grandpa passed away, I was, I had like this really big moment of like, okay, there can't just be this. There, there has to be something out there. There's no way I won't ever see this person again. So the fact that I can go communicate with like other, what I assume are people or spirits of people.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  To me, that brings me like a little bit of warmth, knowing that like, you know, maybe I'll, maybe I will see that person again and maybe, you know, maybe everybody gets to see their loved ones again.

• 1:19:20Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. Was that, did your grandpa pass away recently or no?

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  It was, I think it's going on three years this October, maybe four, three years.

• 1:19:30Theo Von?

  Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Oh, it's all right.

• 1:19:32Theo Von?

  Matt, Tim, right there, he's so young.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, he was only sixty-seven. I know, I know.

• 1:19:38Theo Von?

  Did he get pretty sick?

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, he had, he had cancer, but it was like they found it out of nowhere. His dogs pulled him on his leash and like pulled something in his like abdominal slash like rib cage a little bit. And it was hurting him, it was hurting him for a while and it got worse and worse. And he started coughing a lot more and everything. And eventually he went to the doctor and they were, they did a whole scan of everything and they were like, dude, you've got stage four cancer, like ri- like lungs black. Yeah, so it was, um, he was, he was perfectly healthy like five months before he passed.

• 1:20:10Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:20:13Theo Von?

  Was that scary? Like, were you guys really close?

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was definitely, um, that was definitely like my best friend. That's, that was like my father figure growing up and everything.

• 1:20:22Theo Von?

  It was?

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I spent every weekend of my childhood with him. Every single weekend, yeah. I definitely wouldn't have got into comedy if it wasn't for him.

• 1:20:31Theo Von?

  Dude, yeah, almost like your daddy, so young.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, gee, that's, it looked like a Zika baby.

• 1:20:36Theo Von?

  Let's go.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Had a dome on him.

• 1:20:39Theo Von?

  Bro, BLM, dude.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:20:42Theo Von?

  That's what's up.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he fucking, he loved comedy. He's the one that used to take me like the open mics when I was like fifteen and he would pay like the five dollars a head to like show, like bring your show shit. He would like buy five tickets.

• 1:20:52Theo Von?

  Would he go perform?

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  No, god, no, no, but he fucking loved watching me. You mean like physically or?

• 1:20:58Theo Von?

  Like, why did he, he took you over there because he knew you wanted to do it?

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like he, he thought I was funny, like we would, we would fucking kill each other, laugh every weekend my entire childhood. So it was really cool. He got to see me, he got to see me sell out a comedy club. I think it was the Cincinnati Liberty Funny Bone.

• 1:21:16Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Before he passed, which I think is the hardest part. It's like you, kinda like what we were talking about with Ralphie earlier. It's like if there was one person I wanted to share all of this with, it would have been him. So I feel like he doesn't get to see this, kinda sucks.

• 1:21:29Theo Von?

  He's out there, Steve, that's his name?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, Steve.

• 1:21:31Theo Von?

  What's up, Steve? Shout out Big Steve, my guy.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Oh dude, he fucking loved Ralphie too.

• 1:21:39Theo Von?

  Did he?

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:40Theo Von?

  Oh dude, that's so cool, bro. He can hear us, I feel him right now. Steve's milling around, bro. With his ninety-seven different haircuts, that dude's milling around.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Bro, that was like the shortest his hair ever was. He used to grow it down to like his butt crack, dude. Total, total hippie hair, man.

• 1:21:55Theo Von?

  Dude, a lot of people with, named Rick have ponytails. You notice that?

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Mostly Ricks and Steves, I would argue, yeah.

• 1:22:03Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:22:05Theo Von?

  A ponytail is a Rick and Steve.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  It's a power move, dog.

• 1:22:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, bro.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll still like, I'll pray to him before every show and everything, just be like, hope you, hope you enjoy it. In case you end up watching.

• 1:22:14Theo Von?

  Amen, bro. That's awesome, dude.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:22:19Theo Von?

  That's quality stuff.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 1:22:21Theo Von?

  Um, I'm gonna pivot a little bit. Some of your comedy specials, your first few came out on YouTube, right?

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I put out the first two and then I did a crowd work one on YouTube as well.

• 1:22:31Theo Von?

  And then did you do one on a stream, on a streaming platform now?

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  Uh, then it was Netflix, yeah. Then I did Natural Selection for Netflix.

• 1:22:38Theo Von?

  Did you feel any difference? Because like one is more, it feels like it's a, it feels like it's more for the people, like from, or just it feels like it's, did you feel any difference between like doing some that way and doing one for Netflix or?

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, you do a special for Netflix for like self-validation, to be like, I have, I, I made it to what is supposed to be the pinnacle platform for comedy. But I think the difference was the YouTube stuff, I did entirely like by myself. Like it was just my friends helping me. Like I directed the first one, then I got Eric Griffin to, to, to direct the second one. And even the crowd work one, which was like a totally experimental thing. I literally did it with me. And, uh, and, uh, my buddy Elton actually ran camera by himself. It was me and one person did an entire crowd work special. So, I mean, it was exhausting, but it was super, super fulfilling to like have a hand in a little bit of every piece of the creative for that. So, I mean, I think it was different in, uh, in that sense.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Also, the, um, the, the reach of viewership, I think is different for YouTube and Netflix. It's not everybody has Netflix. It's not everybody likes Netflix and you gotta have a subscription to it versus YouTube. It's so easy to share. Like I can text you a link. You could watch it right now and then you could text that link to 10 other people. So I think you actually reach, you have a potential to reach more viewers on YouTube than you might on Netflix. Yeah. So I guess it's again, like, what does it mean to you?

• 1:23:57Theo Von?

  Right. Yeah, it's interesting, dude. Cause yeah, I got, I'll do, I got one that's coming up, but I think about like, yeah, what I like to do.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Doing it on Netflix?

• 1:24:04Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:05Theo Von?

  And we're just, I'm looking at a cut of it later today, but it's like, what I like to maybe do one in the future. That would be maybe just for YouTube.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:11Theo Von?

  That'd be more just for like, you know, I do it myself completely, you know? I don't know. I just think about that sometimes and what that's like.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Oh no, I battle with it all the time. I'm, I'm doing my next special. It, it'll be towards the end of the year. I can't really say when yet, but I, I don't, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it just yet. I'm not a hundred percent sure. There's different pros and, there's pros and cons, obviously.

• 1:24:29Theo Von?

  Yeah. And you're at a place right now where you can kind of do, you can do what you choose.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:24:33Theo Von?

  Which is pretty nice.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, just trying to figure out what fits best.

• 1:24:36Theo Von?

  You got kind of like, like penned with like being the crowd work, like your crowd work started to kind of like, take clips and make it so that a lot of people are doing crowd work. Do you feel like that that's kind of a true statement?

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say so. I mean, I definitely wasn't like the first one to do it. Like, uh, like Schultz was a big inspiration for me doing that. Like his crowd work's fucking, he's amazing at that.

• 1:24:57Theo Von?

  So good at it.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  He was doing this thing that even made me want to start doing any of my YouTube specials where he was doing like a new minute every single week. Like he would post a new clip every single, that's 52 minutes of material throughout, throughout the year. Uh, he was genius. And he would sprinkle crowd work in with that as well. And, um, I was just like, holy shit, I see the importance of content in the, in the stand-up market, which I don't think anybody had really been paying attention to. Like you put out specials, but that's what, once every year, maybe once every two years.

• 1:25:23Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Um, but we weren't like, comedians weren't being in people's faces all day. Like you weren't prominent on a platform. And people kind of couldn't avoid you, which I think is. You know, prominent for the, uh, for the algorithm.

• 1:25:35Theo Von?

  Well, especially if you don't have, if you're not pod, if you don't have a regular podcast. Like with podcasting, you do it because you just have clips, right?

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:25:40Theo Von?

  But if not, yeah, it's hard to find, like, what is that thing without doing a sketch or, like, planning this big thing?

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  And that's, that's why I like doing the bit of crowd work that I do during my show. Cause like it's new and refreshing, right? Like it's, I'm not doing the same stories and jokes night after night after night that you have to deliver. Like it's your first time ever saying it. Like this is something so new and spontaneous that I can post online. It's not burning any of my material.

• 1:26:02Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, I saw the one where, uh, you saw one of your teachers. Is that, was that one of yours? Did you have a teacher that came?

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  No, I think that was Trevor Wallace.

• 1:26:10Theo Von?

  Oh, that was Trevor Wallace?

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  I think his teacher came.

• 1:26:12Theo Von?

  Sorry, dude.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  It's okay. It's fine.

• 1:26:14Theo Von?

  Um, did, yeah.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  No, I'm fucking with you, man.

• 1:26:17Theo Von?

  Oh, I was like, yeah, we can.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  I'm just kidding, man.

• 1:26:20Theo Von?

  That's okay, dude. Sorry, damn. Fucking Trevor, dude.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  I'm not going anywhere, man.

• 1:26:25Theo Von?

  Trevor impersonated you though, I think. And was, it felt like he was like trying to steal your shit.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:26:31Theo Von?

  I'm just joking. I'm just fucking joking with Trevor, dude. He would never do that. Bro, he's the nicest guy, bro.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  I love him. He's very, very nice.

• 1:26:37Theo Von?

  Is there, I don't know if there's, he is so nice, dude. Um, but did, did it ever feel like, like then you had to be the crowd work? Like you had to do that?

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a little bit of that. It's kind of, you know, I talked to Adam Ray about this recently too. Cause you know, he's gotten so prominent with like his characters that he does with like Dr. Phil and Biden and everything.

• 1:26:55Theo Von?

  Well, he stepped into that and it's unbelievable.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Genius, by the way, to find, that's, it's such a specific lane that nobody else has been doing.

• 1:27:00Theo Von?

  Nobody?

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Um, I asked him, I was like, do you find people coming to your show and like just wanting the characters? And he was like, all the time. Like sometimes I'll be in the middle of a story and somebody will be like, do crowd work. And I'm like, I'm gonna fucking get to it if I feel like it, okay? It's not, that's not all this is, but like I'm a goddamn jukebox.

• 1:27:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  It's crazy, man. But I mean, I do it because I enjoy it, you know?

• 1:27:22Theo Von?

  Yeah, that's like when I was in like, when I couldn't, when I was like doing those weiner pills. It's like, get an erection. And you're like.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  I'm trying, man.

• 1:27:29Theo Von?

  Give me a few minutes.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me warm them up a little bit.

• 1:27:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. Let me nibble off a frickin chunk of my roommate's wiener pill. At an angle so he won't notice it's missing, you freak. They're only frickin five milligrams. Tablets.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Do you, do you ever, when you're touring, like, do you ever do any crowd work at all?

• 1:27:49Theo Von?

  I do some of it more often now, and I really like it.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  It's just fun. It's just something silly and spontaneous. It gets a bad rap for people being like, oh, you're just doing it because like you don't have the material. That's such a hack response to have to it. Like, by what means does that mean that?

• 1:28:05Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, dude, yeah, like I was shooting, we were shooting this thing in Lexington a few weeks ago and somebody yelled out AIDS. Right in the middle of the show. And it was just like, it was a woman too.

• 1:28:14Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 1:28:15Theo Von?

  And usually AIDS is more of a guys thing or whatever, I guess. So.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  And what, are you gonna not acknowledge it?

• 1:28:21Theo Von?

  I know, dude, I was like, oh, that's how bad things have gotten. It's like, people just yelling AIDS out.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Dude, that's the other hard thing as well is like, uh, venue wise now, the smaller venue I do, the more people yell out. Cause like, they wanna be the person that like gets talked to, like they want to be the next clip. I'm like, it doesn't work like that. It's usually the least assuming person you talk to. It's probably like, you're gonna get the best shit out of them. It's not like the, like the pick me.

• 1:28:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Person in the back.

• 1:28:44Theo Von?

  That's true, dude. It's always like that.

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  A comedy club is like so intimate, we're all kind of feel like we're hanging out that, in like a living room. To where it's, nobody really wants to be like the dickhead to interrupt. Like, that's kind of perfect. And an arena is so big that like, you, I think they assume they, you can't hear them, so they're not gonna waste yelling out. Like, anywhere in the middle ground, like a theater, people are like, I know he'll fucking hear me.

• 1:29:03Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  We yell some wild shit.

• 1:29:06Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. I think it's like, there is this weird thing where you yell, cause you kind of wanna be heard, but you do not wanna be called on. There's some of that energy too for some people.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Oh, of course.

• 1:29:15Theo Von?

  Like, you wanna be a part of it, but you don't wanna be a part of it.

• 1:29:17Speaker 01

  Oh, I love the person, I love like the, like the wife brought, brought her husband and the husband didn't wanna sit up front. He's like, what if, what if he talks to me? And the wife's like, it's not all about you, Ron. You know what I mean? And then you end up talking to that guy and he's like, this is my fucking worst nightmare. The wife's loving it. I love that dynamic.

• 1:29:32Theo Von?

  Has it ever backfired? Like, take me on one that backfired. Was there, have there been one that backfired? Like, cause when you open it up to the crowd, that's another thing. Suddenly forty people are, they wanna have a, you know, they wanna offer a suggestion.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  It's very hard to direct a room full of people who are like, okay, now it's my turn. So I mean, that, I mean, that does happen quite often. I mean, usually I'm pretty good at shutting it down and everybody can kind of be cordial, but it happens. But you also get duds, you know what I mean? Like, you fucking, you interview people, you know what it's like to talk to somebody who you can't hold a conversation with? So I mean, that happens all the time, but I'm not gonna post that clip, obviously. So yeah, it's not magic every time, but when you do get it, ah, it's such a fun feeling to have that moment right then, right there with people.

• 1:30:10Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, one time there was a guy and his wife, he had a wife or girlfriend, whoever it was, had the craziest, like, um,

• 1:30:20Theo Von?

  like tits, right?

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  You couldn't think of tits, okay?

• 1:30:24Theo Von?

  And they, well, they were so crazy, I couldn't even, it was hard to categorize them. They were so ins-

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Onomatopoeic.

• 1:30:31Theo Von?

  Just, yeah, just, he's just boom, bang, you know, just like some real, just onomatopoeic on it.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 1:30:39Theo Von?

  Just like some damn fucking, just some milk tonsils, you know, just some, like L5S nun. Like, you have no cartilage left from holding those up. They were just, yeah, they were, you could just feel like one of, you could feel, um, one of her, uh, vertebrae having trouble.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  God damn.

• 1:30:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, you could feel it, dude.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  Them Hindenburgs.

• 1:31:00Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. She had them damn blimps and front blimps.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Front blimps.

• 1:31:05Theo Von?

  So anyway, dude, but they were craziest looking tits. And she, you, and the guy's like, I said, oh, what do you do? He's like, you know, I, uh, stock vending machines, you know? And I was like, and what do you guys put in them? And he's like, muscle milk, you know?

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  God damn.

• 1:31:19Theo Von?

  And he says muscle milk, but then you see where you think he's getting the milk from. His wife's just sitting there all quiet. With the craziest tits, like-

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:27Theo Von?

  Acting like she doesn't have crazy tits or whatever. And she was wearing a little bitty hat. You ever see somebody who like pins a hat on their hair and acts like it's a real hat?

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Like a brooch, yeah, of course.

• 1:31:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's a fucking brooch. It's a little, it's like Toy Story hat. Like bitch, what are we talking about?

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  And did you address something? Did you address the titties?

• 1:31:46Theo Von?

  Yeah, I said, well, I said, well, where are you guys getting the milk from, right? And that was just, and dude, there was nothing else to the rest of the night that was like, there was just something about that thing that's in the moment where, and it was just simple. There was nothing I really had to do.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:32:02Theo Von?

  It was just like-

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  Sometimes it just presents itself. Bro, I was in Philly. Yeah, this was, this was in Philly and there's a guy sitting front row. He's got like these like slack pants on and just had the most amount of dick sitting in the front of his pants.

• 1:32:17Theo Von?

  Like a conglomerate?

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 1:32:20Theo Von?

  Like a, like a seven dick pileup right in his own pants?

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  He melted eight or nine dicks on his dick. Like it was, it was, it was so prominent. It stopped me in the middle of a story and I was like, you got, I took the camera off the cameraman's shoulder, zoomed in on it, placement. It looked like he shit the front of his pants. Like it was so much dick. It, it honestly ruined my night.

• 1:32:39Theo Von?

  Ooh.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  I was, I was upset. I was insecure for the next like 45 minutes.

• 1:32:42Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude. Oh, when somebody shows up with that stepdad cock or whatever?

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Stepdad cock is such a real, as somebody who had a stepdad, it's such a real thing. I was so mad I wasn't his.

• 1:32:51Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  For a few years, man.

• 1:32:53Theo Von?

  I'd have been afraid to come out of that thing though. That stepdad cock, dude, you can't. That's why he doesn't have any kids, bro. A kid wouldn't make it out of that thing, brother. Oh, this is it, right? Your biggest dick ever.

• 1:33:04Speaker 02

  Is this a video of it?

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Uh, it's probably a video, yeah.

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  And put your fucking dick away, boy.

• 1:33:10Theo Von?

  Put your dick away, dude.

• 1:33:12Speaker 03

  I know, cameraman, don't zoom in. You don't have to. I can fucking see it, dude. He's smuggling. Unbelievable.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  Cameraman just like wouldn't get the shot of it. And I was like, hold on.

• 1:33:24Theo Von?

  Why wouldn't he?

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Uh, sometimes they're like, sometimes they're like three inches away from somebody's face and I'm like, get out of there. You have a zoom.

• 1:33:31Speaker 03

  Hold on, it's tangled up in his dick. Hold on a second, hold on.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Look at this fucking thing.

• 1:33:36Theo Von?

  You're moving the camera.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Bro, look at that thing, man.

• 1:33:40Theo Von?

  Big bro got that front yard dog, huh?

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  Remember an alien when it's coming out of her fucking stomach?

• 1:33:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  That's what it looks like.

• 1:33:46Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a lot, man. Turtleneck dick is just a different confidence.

• 1:33:53Theo Von?

  And he's wearing a turtleneck too?

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, he knows what's up.

• 1:33:57Theo Von?

  That's insane. That's Christmas dick.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  A Christmas dick.

• 1:34:01Theo Von?

  If you're wearing a turtleneck.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  A holiday hog.

• 1:34:03Theo Von?

  Tight pants, brother?

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, he knew. He, you gotta, that's not comfortable. There's no way.

• 1:34:09Theo Von?

  That's, oh, no, that's all tight, brother. That's your whole body.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  I'm so glad my dick isn't that big.

• 1:34:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  So glad about it.

• 1:34:16Theo Von?

  Yeah, same, same.

• 1:34:20Speaker 01

  But yeah, man, you get some, some weird stuff like that.

• 1:34:23Theo Von?

  What about, uh, are you married? You're not married, are you?

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  No, no, single.

• 1:34:28Theo Von?

  Okay, and do you start thinking about getting married or anything like that? Or do you even think about that kind of stuff? Or like, does your mom bug you about that? What's your mom doing in your life these days? Cause she was giving you a hard time about working for Ralphie. What is, uh, does she still like have that managerial energy? Or now she kind of trusts where you're at?

• 1:34:44Speaker 01

  No, she's, she's so happy with where I'm at, dude. I just got her her second house.

• 1:34:49Theo Von?

  What?

• 1:34:49Speaker 01

  Cause she, yeah, the first one just wasn't working out. And she was like by herself in the middle of nowhere, Georgia. And she was like, nobody comes and visits. I'm like, no shit. You live in the middle of nowhere. So I moved her out to, um, to Colorado where my sister lives. And now she has her, uh, she's there with the grand, her grandkids and stuff. My little sister's got kids.

• 1:35:06Theo Von?

  That's nice. Oh, your sister has a couple of kids?

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's got two daughters.

• 1:35:09Theo Von?

  Oh, that's your mom right there. What's her name?

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  April.

• 1:35:10Theo Von?

  April. What's up, April?

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  You know what's so funny? If you look at mom, Christina from Iowa is on the top thing. She's actually more prominent than my, my own mom in most of these.

• 1:35:20Theo Von?

  Really? That's her right in the middle?

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  Uh, Christina. Top, top right corner, the blonde hair.

• 1:35:25Theo Von?

  And who was that, your ex?

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, that was, um, that's, God, arguably, probably my, the most famous crowd work thing was she's like this really hot mom, actually grandma, who lives in Iowa. And I met her on stage. She gave me like these cookies and this like really sexual shirt and everything. And I, bro, I was like 10 minutes into the show when this happened. I did like an hour and 20 minutes just talking to her. And it was. Crazy, crazy good time the entire time. Like, we were, great chemistry, great banter, the crowd was fucking loving it. But at the time, you can only post a 10-minute clip online, on like Instagram and stuff. So we, I had to edit it all down to that, but like, the whole show was that. Which never happens, by the way. Like, that's, it sounds like I didn't have material ready for the show, but like, it was just such a really cool in-the-moment thing. And what stupor, it's got over, like, I'm, I'm sure collectively over a couple hundred million views.

• 1:36:11Theo Von?

  Dang.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:12Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's awesome.

• 1:36:14Theo Von?

  No way.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  She's awesome.

• 1:36:16Theo Von?

  Dude, that's the best, bro. Where in Iowa was that at?

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Um, Des Moines, the Funny Bone there.

• 1:36:20Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, sometimes crowd work is, uh, it, it's different every time. That's the fun, you don't know if you're gonna talk to, you know, super hot mom, or biggest dick you've ever seen, or somebody, you know, somebody all crumpled up in the corner, you don't know.

• 1:36:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, it is kinda great. Oh, there she is, right there.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, it is great, dude, with crowd work, there's something really special about it.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  It's just real and in the moment, you know?

• 1:36:41Theo Von?

  How do you get the, um, how do you get, your cameraman now, is you have a special cameraman who's wa, who's like?

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Sitting right there. Kyle, he gets all of it.

• 1:36:50Theo Von?

  You do it all, Kyle?

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. He does all, he does all the crowd work stuff.

• 1:36:53Theo Von?

  Oh my gosh!

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we do a little collaborative editing system together.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, he shoots all of it. This was, man, the comedy clubs, that feels like a lifetime ago. This is probably three and a half years ago, maybe, something like that.

• 1:37:05Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  Maybe? That feels like a different lifetime ago.

• 1:37:09Theo Von?

  Um, are you off tour right now, are you going back out? Is there any new places that you're going that you're a little bit like?

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Um, new places this year, not, I mean, it's like a-

• 1:37:18Theo Von?

  Like, new countries?

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  Uh, we just got back from Europe, which was really awesome. We did, um, we did England, we went to Romania, Romania was fucking awesome.

• 1:37:26Theo Von?

  Dude, my friend just, you have second guessed in a row, that's talking about Romania, dude.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:37:30Theo Von?

  My friend just quit playing basketball, my friend Patrick was playing basketball over there.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:37:34Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  He's white?

• 1:37:35Theo Von?

  White guy, yeah.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. Can I, can I tell him the story? Okay, so we get to, we have like five weeks in Europe straight. This is night one of us landing in Romania of the whole trip, night one.

• 1:37:48Theo Von?

  Five weeks is a long time.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Very long time. Night one, we're like, oh, we're gonna go out, have some drinks. It's Friday night. We'll see what Romania is about. Kyle gets roofied and robbed the first night on tour.

• 1:38:00Theo Von?

  How do you know you got roofied, Kyle?

• 1:38:02Speaker 04

  I woke up in an ambulance fifty, fifty minutes away from the hotel at nine thirty in the morning. My chain was gone, my camera was gone, and they sent three grand on my debit card.

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, he couldn't like remember anything. They had to like carry him through the lobby and everything. He was fucked up, dude. It was pretty, it was pretty funny.

• 1:38:17Theo Von?

  That checks out.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Night one, dude. Night, well, it was like, we got back to the hotel at probably like four AM or something like that, and we're like, hold on, Kyle wasn't with us. I checked the location on my phone. He's still at the bar. We thought he had left earlier. So I'm texting with him, I'm like, yo, like, do you want Jackson and I to come? You know Jackson McQueen?

• 1:38:36Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  He's so, he's so funny.

• 1:38:38Theo Von?

  He's hilarious.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Um, I was like, do you want Jackson and I to, we'll come, come back and get you right now? And he goes, no, it's all good. I'm heading, I'm heading back to the hotel right now. I was like, are you sure? He goes, yeah, I'm heading back to the hotel. Go to sleep. I wake up at nine thirty in the morning. My phone's ringing off the hook, and I'm like, fucking what? They're like, yeah, Kyle's in the back of an ambulance right now. It's like, no fucking way.

• 1:38:56Theo Von?

  Could you communicate with him, Kyle?

• 1:38:57Speaker 04

  No, I, I could barely open one of my eyes. And I was, I knew I got beaten up by strippers. I remember that. And that's, that's all I remember.

• 1:39:06Theo Von?

  Do you have a grill in right now?

• 1:39:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Theo Von?

  Okay, that, that's interesting.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  Bro, we're sitting in the van, day one after his recovery, and it's all quiet, and we're, we're trying to ask him little things about, we're trying to give him some space, and he just goes, "I think those strippers were mean to me." He was so, so somber. We're like, what? He goes, "Yeah, I think they pushed me down a lot." It was one of the meanest things I've ever heard.

• 1:39:28Theo Von?

  That's wild to say that specifically, "I think they pushed me down."

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  It was heartbreaking.

• 1:39:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, and all you got was that grill? Um, the worst part is, dude, and just the bottoms.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Not taking the grill is hilarious. I'm gonna leave him something.

• 1:39:40Theo Von?

  But dude, uh, you did a show in Romania?

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, Romania was awesome. We did two shows there. So cool. I guess comedy is like a new growing thing that's like people are starting to go and perform a lot more. If you get an opportunity, they were a fucking awesome crowd. I would, I would love to go back.

• 1:39:55Theo Von?

  And do they speak, is there, is there enough English spoken there?

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Everybody, everybody there speaks English for the most part. Oh, yeah, Dracula's Castle.

• 1:40:03Theo Von?

  Is that close to Estonia, I wonder?

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  Hmm, I mean, close-ish. I think, I think Estonia is a little bit further north, I think.

• 1:40:11Theo Von?

  Cause we had Ari Matti and he's Estonian.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, Ari's the best.

• 1:40:14Theo Von?

  He's, eh, he's a, he's a tornado of comedy, dude.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Europe crowds are fucking awesome, man. I, I love performing overseas.

• 1:40:22Theo Von?

  Thousand miles apart?

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:24Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, good time, dude. Um.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Sweden was awesome. Oslo was really cool. Eng- I love performing in England and the crowds are so much fun.

• 1:40:32Theo Von?

  Oh, dude, yeah. We had some good, we did some good spots over there. Ireland.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  Ireland's the best show of the tour every time I go there. They're fucking great. Scotland was amazing. You can't crowd work in Scotland though, dude.

• 1:40:45Theo Von?

  Yeah, why not?

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  Can't fucking understand them.

• 1:40:46Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  I'll say something, they'll say something back and I don't understand it and the crowd is like, they're fucking cooking me, dude, and I have no idea with what they're saying.

• 1:40:57Theo Von?

  They're, yeah, it's legendary over there. What's up, what's up, uh, what's in the news, dude? Anything in the news that we wanted to look at?

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, what's?

• 1:41:05Theo Von?

  Anything good to talk about? Oh, what do you think about these data centers and stuff? Do you think about that kind of stuff? Like, cause that's kind of crazy.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  I, I just had to help stop them from putting in one, um, in Rhode Island.

• 1:41:15Theo Von?

  No way.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had like have a whole town hall meeting and everything like that.

• 1:41:18Theo Von?

  You went to it?

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  I couldn't go, but my friend went and spoke on my behalf, which was very nice. She was very passionate about it and, I mean, she had my approval. I, I couldn't agree with her more. It's just, it's, it's so peaceful out there. It's gonna, it's, it's just fucking up what we have, man. I mean, I don't know too much about them. I'm not even gonna pretend like I do.

• 1:41:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  But, um, and the one thing, the most prominent thing that stood out to me, cause it wasn't gonna be that far from my house, was there was gonna be like a, a non-stop humming coming from the building. And I was like, I don't, I love the, I love like can hear birds outside, dude.

• 1:41:48Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, well, especially, yeah, like something just humming in the distance, dude?

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:54Theo Von?

  New York passes data center moratorium and consumer protections as environmental and housing proposals stall.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  So what data is going into these things?

• 1:42:04Theo Von?

  Why, why, yeah, why do the data centers need to be so big? Do we have anything about that? This is perplexity. Data centers are built for continuous operation. Power, cooling, and network pass are duplicated, so a failure of maintenance event doesn't drop workloads. Having parallel systems and physically separated paths.

• 1:42:23Theo Von?

  Well, my thing is just this, like, so we're already keeping a lot of data, right? Like, our phones, we record stuff all the time. It's on the cloud.

• 1:42:35Theo Von?

  The amount of data that they must want to store now must be astronomical compared to what we're doing. So that's what I don't understand. Unless we're gonna go into like a surveillance state, right? Where, which is, that's what it feels like a lot of times.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  It feels like they already are.

• 1:42:51Theo Von?

  Right. Because then they're gonna have to record around the clock, everywhere, everything.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're just gonna put these random, they're just gonna put these storage places in random places around the country. That's so strange to me.

• 1:43:02Theo Von?

  Yeah. Aaron Brockovich, I know, was just talking about it.

• 1:43:07Theo Von?

  I want to get someone on to talk about some of these data centers, just to learn a little bit more about it and what's gonna be going on. Yeah, let's see what this says right here. This is tech billionaire, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison confesses a dystopian AI mass surveillance network.

• 1:43:21Speaker 05

  Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.

• 1:43:29Speaker 05

  And it's unimpeachable. The cars, the cars have camera, you know, cameras on them. All right, we have, I think we have a squad car here someplace. But those kind of applications using AI, if we can use AI, and we're using AI to monitor the video. So if that altercation had occurred, that had occurred in Memphis, the chief of police would be immediately notified. It's not people that are looking at those cameras. It's AI that's looking at the camera. No, no, no, you can't do this. It would be like a shooting. That's gonna be immediately, that's gonna be an event that's immediately, an alarm's gonna go off, it's gonna be, and we're gonna, we're gonna have supervision. In other words, every police officer is gonna be supervised.

• 1:44:14Theo Von?

  It's gonna be wild.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  What the fuck, man?

• 1:44:17Theo Von?

  I mean, if you play that beginning part again, just play the first 20 seconds. What does he say this one part?

• 1:44:21Speaker 05

  Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.

• 1:44:29Speaker 05

  And it's unimpe- it's unimpe-.

• 1:44:31Theo Von?

  Because we are constantly reporting. It sounds like they're like, like they're gonna be reporting to him. You're gonna, that's the thing.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  It's so fucking weird, dude. I mean, do we have to be watched all the time?

• 1:44:44Theo Von?

  I don't know how we can stop it now. That's the scary part.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Why do we need it? I, I mean, I understand they're pushing the agenda of safety, but like,

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  we have to? How mu- how much safer is it gonna get? Is it just gonna be for accountability, you think?

• 1:44:58Theo Von?

  I think that's, it's like, and also there'll be a level of control there because-

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say so.

• 1:45:05Theo Von?

  Yeah. If you don't do certain things, then you're entering this phase. Well, you didn't op- you didn't do things the right, the perfect way, this exact way.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:13Theo Von?

  So then what are the repercussions of that?

• 1:45:16Speaker 01

  It's fucking weird, dude. I don't even, I don't even want to live in this time, to be honest.

• 1:45:20Theo Von?

  I know. It feels just kinda like-

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  It's too futuristic. It's too, it's too invasive. When would you have liked to have been alive? If you could like, pick a couple of decades to have been like-

• 1:45:32Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Prime you.

• 1:45:35Theo Von?

  I think probably born in... Cause I think you, but part of you does, I feel like wanna kinda know. It's weird. You wanna know how it-

• 1:45:46Theo Von?

  You wanna be a part of the world in the sense you wanna like, you, you hope that the world ends well.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:45:52Theo Von?

  Cause otherwise you feel like, what's the point? I think that starts to happen.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:58Theo Von?

  You, for me, anyway, I'm like, you wanna, I feel like for past generations, I bet you feel like, all right, let's leave it better. We're, we're all building towards something. And then now suddenly, I feel like we're all standing in a cul-de-sac and we're like, what the fuck are we building towards anymore? Our grandparents are like, doing OnlyFans now. They're like, we're checked out. We don't care. It doesn't even matter. Like, everybody, like-

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  I do feel that way.

• 1:46:19Theo Von?

  Some of that energy is like, what are we doing?

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it looks like a generation after this one, you know? I have no, I have no idea what that looks like.

• 1:46:29Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Speaker 01

  I think I would've, I would've liked to have been born- Maybe like sixty, nineteen sixty.

• 1:46:37Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Grow up in the seventies and then you're a young adult in the eighties. And the music culture alone for that would have been fucking awesome.

• 1:46:44Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:46:45Speaker 01

  It's great for film.

• 1:46:47Theo Von?

  Everything was magical.

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  I've heard good things.

• 1:46:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, everything was magical and then you get to see how dystopian it's getting and be like, yeah, I'm glad I'm glad I'm leaving.

• 1:46:55Speaker 01

  Dude, I feel so weird being like the last generation of people who wasn't like chronically online. Like I didn't, this isn't young for some people, but like I, I didn't get a cell phone until I was like, I think I was almost, almost fifteen, something like that. It's like, I still got the childhood of like, I got the privilege of boredom.

• 1:47:12Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  I think that's good for your brain to be a kid and have nothing to do and have to figure it out. How to entertain yourself, go, go make up a game, go play pretend.

• 1:47:23Theo Von?

  Go walk around and go throw something through somebody's window.

• 1:47:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have to go break some shit. I think that's good for you.

• 1:47:28Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, your mom came home and you're like, you gotta rest it. You're like, yeah, I fuck, I don't know.

• 1:47:32Speaker 01

  What else was I supposed to do?

• 1:47:33Theo Von?

  Yeah, I threw, I threw something through someone's window. I didn't know it would break. Just shit like that. Like you just didn't know anything.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  And I think that, I think it makes you a better person.

• 1:47:41Theo Von?

  Oh dude.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  So now.

• 1:47:42Theo Von?

  Wandering around just bored, hoping something would happen. A car drove by, you're just watching it go by.

• 1:47:49Speaker 01

  Just watching it, dude.

• 1:47:50Theo Von?

  Laying on your floor and like hoping your mom wouldn't come home soon, but also hoping your mom would come home soon.

• 1:47:57Speaker 01

  Just if somebody's around, just to hear some racket.

• 1:47:59Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  I think that's good for you, man. And that there's, that, that, that's gone. People will never have that again.

• 1:48:04Theo Von?

  Taking a thousand naps.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:07Theo Von?

  If anybody came to the door, you would go talk to them, even if it was like a, you know, a, like a registered sex offender, whatever. Didn't even matter. You keep the chain on to keep them out, but you still at least talk to them. Cause it was somebody to talk to.

• 1:48:19Speaker 01

  Of course. And they were charming, you know?

• 1:48:22Theo Von?

  Yeah, they were good at what they did.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Man, remember having to like ride your bike across town to see if your friend was home?

• 1:48:27Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  And they weren't.

• 1:48:29Theo Von?

  Oh god.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  And you just had to go back.

• 1:48:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:48:33Speaker 01

  Across town. You biked miles.

• 1:48:35Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  Across grass.

• 1:48:37Theo Von?

  Dude, it was, yeah. Oh dude, yeah, you'd find a new way to go. What is this video right here? We'll watch this and we'll get you out of here, man. I know you got a show tonight.

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:48:47Theo Von?

  I have heard about these flock cameras.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  What is this?

• 1:48:49Theo Von?

  This is, these are like some of the, um, early, uh, cameras are going up everywhere. Mass surveillance, public safety, uh, they are linked to the new AI data centers. Um, let's play it.

• 1:49:01Speaker 06

  You won't believe the stickers I found. Somebody is putting these buggers up on every flock camera in town. Not enough people know that these are not just license plate readers. These flock cameras build profiles on individuals that are walking by and in vehicles. They use things like gender, clothing, behavior, and even biometrics to build profiles on you for their Nova platform. Even integrating social media profiles, email data, and places that you go. And Flock's data feeds directly into Palantir's Gotham, which already powers ICE deportation.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  What if this is GTA 6?

• 1:49:38Speaker 01

  Like, they're scanning everybody in real life, in the real world, and everybody's gonna be in the game.

• 1:49:43Theo Von?

  That.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  That's why it's not out yet.

• 1:49:46Theo Von?

  That, first of all, is the excuse that they need for why it's not out.

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 1:49:50Theo Von?

  And two, that would be absolutely amazing, dude.

• 1:49:53Speaker 01

  I mean, they just change a little feature about you, but you're like, you know that's you.

• 1:49:56Theo Von?

  But in the future, they could do that. Some of these companies could then license your existence somehow, or where you're at in certain areas, into a video game like that, and that gets kinda crazy, dude.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  That's pretty sick.

• 1:50:07Theo Von?

  Yeah. Let's finish out here. Let me see, flock cameras have exploded across the US because they're cheap, turnkey, crime-fighting tools that let even small departments tap into a national vehicle tracking network.

• 1:50:19Theo Von?

  Flock sells subscription packages that include the hardware, cellular backhaul. Their cameras continuously capture plates, timestamps, and vehicle metadata, pushes to Flock's cloud where cops can run searches and set alerts on hot lists. Flock has marketed directly to police, HOAs, and private business, centralizing all plate reads. By 2024-25, the company said it had cameras in roughly 4,000-plus cities and over 5,000 communities.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:50:44Theo Von?

  So, bro, it's here.

• 1:50:45Speaker 01

  Oh, it's already in. Yeah, it's done.

• 1:50:47Theo Von?

  That's the new Annabelle, dude.

• 1:50:50Theo Von?

  And she's out of the box. Matt Rife, man, um, you have your new, you're going on a tour.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm on tour right now. Yeah.

• 1:50:59Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Stay Golden Tour.

• 1:51:00Theo Von?

  Amen, bro.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  We're going through the rest of this year, so it should be fun.

• 1:51:03Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  There's some fun cities ahead.

• 1:51:04Theo Von?

  Nice.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  I'll be back here in Nashville in October for Bridgestone.

• 1:51:07Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Theo Von?

  Nice.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  If you're in town for it, you gotta come through, dude.

• 1:51:10Theo Von?

  Dude, yeah, I will be in town, my friend. Is somebody dying or getting married? What's happening in October?

• 1:51:16Speaker 01

  Same thing.

• 1:51:16Theo Von?

  October 10th, yeah, October 10th, something's happening.

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  It's my grandpa's birthday.

• 1:51:20Theo Von?

  It is?

• 1:51:20Speaker 01

  That's creepy.

• 1:51:21Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  That's creepy. Shout out Steve.

• 1:51:23Theo Von?

  Steve! Steve! Um, bro, yeah, thank you, congrats, everything. FTX is coming out, you don't know when yet?

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  Uh, the FTX series comes out this December and then-

• 1:51:35Theo Von?

  Is that what it's called?

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Uh, no, it's called The Altruist.

• 1:51:37Theo Von?

  The Altruist.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Uh, that'll be on Netflix, and then we've got the movie with Owen Wilson coming out in October, so that'll be some nice little end of the year.

• 1:51:43Theo Von?

  Oh, Rolling Loud, the movie, that's what it is?

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:46Theo Von?

  Dude, that's crazy, bro. What do you play in this movie?

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  Uh, I play his, um, his work colleague who happens to also be at the festival, he's like a big festival head, and he helps him look for his lost son at the festival. So it's just me, him, and this girl Christine Coe, who's a hilarious actress, she was on Dave.

• 1:52:04Theo Von?

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  So we kinda help him look for his lost son.

• 1:52:07Theo Von?

  Amen, bro.

• 1:52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:52:08Theo Von?

  Um, best of luck, man, congrats on everything, dude. Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me, bro.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  Dude, thanks so much for having me, man.

• 1:52:14Theo Von?

  It's a pleasure.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  I know we've been trying to figure this out for some years now, so thank you for finally making the time, I appreciate it.

• 1:52:17Theo Von?

  It's a blessing, man, your life seems active and busy, it seems like you stay, uh, active in your own life as much as just, you know, show up for yourself and, and get things done, that's exciting, it's inspiring.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  Thank you, man, I appreciate that.

• 1:52:28Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's the truth. Matt Rife.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Thanks, brother.