#344 Dusty Slay - Moon Landing Conspiracies, Flat Earth, Aliens and the Nephilim

Dusty Slay is a stand-up comedian known for his Southern, working-class observational humor and is currently touring nationwide on his Neighborhood Guy Tour. Raised in a trailer park in Opelika, Alabama, he went from working regular jobs to appearances on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central, and Netflix. He is also a regular performer at the Grand Ole Opry and the author of We’re Having a Good Time: And Other Stories. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Privacy Isn't Paranoia. Its Protection. - https://theglacierapp.com For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at https://Mengotomars.com Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code SRS at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get 20% off with promo code SRS at https://shopmando.com! #mandopod Upgrade your eyewear at https://roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off sitewide at checkout. Dusty Slay Links: Purchase We're Having a Good Time: (And Other Stories...) Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1668087669?tag=simonsayscom Barnes & Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/were-having-a-good-time-dusty-slay/1149525866?ean=9781668087664 Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dustyslaycomedy Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dustyslay X - https://x.com/dustyslay TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@dustyslay Website - www.dustyslay.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Shawn Ryan?

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• 0:45Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:25Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:34Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 2:09Shawn Ryan?

  Dusty Slay, welcome to the show, man.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'm pumped to be here. Honored to be here.

• 2:14Shawn Ryan?

  Pumped to have you. Pumped to have you. I was watching a bunch of your stuff over the weekend and got some awesome laughs out of it.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 2:23Shawn Ryan?

  So, uh, yeah, I want to have you here. We've been watching you for a while, actually. And then, uh, so I was stoked when I saw your name pop up on the list.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, I was, when this came to me, I was like, oh, amazing.

• 2:36Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I mean, I, you know, I just don't think about doing a podcast like this, and this is great.

• 2:43Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. Right on. Well, it's definitely a nice change up for me. We've only had one other comedian on.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, my friend, John Crist.

• 2:50Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah? You guys are buddies?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:53Shawn Ryan?

  I love that dude.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, John's, John's the best.

• 2:55Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't talked to him in a little bit. How's he doing?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  He's doing great. He's getting married and he's, uh...

• 3:00Shawn Ryan?

  He's getting married?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  He's getting married and he's, uh, you know, his comedy's great and...

• 3:04Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Every time I see him, he looks happy and...

• 3:07Shawn Ryan?

  I'm happy to hear that, man. Well, let me give you an introduction here. Dusty Slay, you're a stand-up comedian known for your southern, working-class style of observational humor, and are currently on the Neighborhood Guide tour, making stops in theaters all across the country. You grew up in a trailer park in Opelika, Alabama, and spent years working regular jobs before building a career in stand-up that has taken you to The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central, and Netflix, where you released Working Man in 2024 and Wet Heat in 2025. You made your grand old Opry debut in 2019 and have since

• 3:47Shawn Ryan?

  become a regular performer on the Opry stage. You're also the author of We're Having a Good Time and Other Stories, sharing stories from your life in career and comedy. And we're just here having a good time.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  That's right. We're having a good time.

• 4:02Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I mean, that's what it's all about.

• 4:05Shawn Ryan?

  So I got a couple of things to knock out here real quick. Everybody starts off getting a gift.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Oh, all right.

• 4:15Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance League gummy bears.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  All right.

• 4:18Shawn Ryan?

  Made in the USA.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  I love that. Thank you.

• 4:21Shawn Ryan?

  No cannabis.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  All right, great.

• 4:23Shawn Ryan?

  Just candy.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Well, I was gonna say, that's what I look, I go, you know, my kids will love these. And I go, well, let's make sure. Yeah, thank you.

• 4:29Shawn Ryan?

  And then I got a Patreon account, which is a subscription account that we've turned into one hell of a community. And back when I started this in the attic, they were the only ones supporting me. So they're the reason I get to sit down with you here today. And so they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. So this is from Stephen Casey. What principles guide your comedy in a way that aligns with your faith while avoiding the temptation to rely on shock value, vulgarity, or sexual humor just to get a reaction?

• 5:02Speaker 02

  You know, I, when I was doing comedy early on, I was, I would do some dirtier jokes. And this friend of mine, who's, I don't think would say he's a Christian, I was, I was talking to him and we were talking about jokes that I was gonna do that night. And I go, well, I don't want to do this joke. I don't want to do this joke because I have some people from my church coming to the show. And he said to me, he goes, it's interesting that you care about what people from the church think, but you don't care about what God thinks. And I go, whoa. And I don't know if he was just being funny with me, and I

• 5:42Speaker 02

  think he was. But I was like, wow, that really, that really hits in a way where I'm like, yeah, I mean, if I'm so worried about what they think about me, then why would I not, you know, just clean it up altogether? Now, not that all of my jokes, you know, I talk about, you know, all sorts of things, weed and drinking stories and this and that. And I don't know that it all honors God, but I, I try my best to be funny without being crude.

• 6:10Shawn Ryan?

  When did that happen?

• 6:12Speaker 02

  That was, uh, probably 2009 or 10, something like that.

• 6:18Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow. It happened a while ago.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I would say, you know, I, I don't think that moment did I go, all right, everything's clean now. And it, it took some time, but...

• 6:28Shawn Ryan?

  It stands out to you. That's cool. Sounds like a significant moment.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, and there's, you know, there's been a few, uh, you know, but I just think, I've never really been that dirty of a person, you know, when I was drinking, I, you know, I would, you know, my mouth was more foul. But, uh, you know, I just try to, I go, I want people to feel good that come to my show. I want them to feel good about themselves, which is kind of why my comedy's never been offensive. It's not that I'm necessarily worried to offend, but I just want everybody to feel good. I want them to leave the show not feeling worse about themselves.

• 7:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll bet that's, uh, I'll bet that takes a new level of creativity to, uh, to navigate through the, your own guardrails that you've set on yourself.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think it helps you to be more creative because you go, all right, this, this is, you know, maybe you're like, this is the obvious word that I would use here. But what's a word that's not cheesy, but that would also convey the same thing?

• 7:28Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, do you swear at all?

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Not on stage. I feel like there is, um, uh, in wet heat, I say ass, uh, because it was a homeless guy in, in San Diego that said to me, he goes, would you like me to whoop your ass? And I, and I just, I didn't know how to replace it. And I thought, well, that's not so bad. And I am just quoting the guy.

• 7:54Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I'm trying to stop that right now. That is, like, this, this may be one of the hardest things I've done.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  But not to cuss?

• 8:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, just, I'm just trying to stop saying F-bombs.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:10Shawn Ryan?

  It's hard for me to stop it. Like, real hard.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Well, I have a buddy, you know, and he has a joke about that where he talks about that. He goes, you know, when's the last time you said shoot? You know, he goes, whoops-a-daisy doesn't really cut it when you, you hit your hand with a hammer, you know?

• 8:26Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man. How did you quit? I mean, I've been, I mean, it's, I've been...

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Well, my everyday...

• 8:34Shawn Ryan?

  Unfiltered since 12? I'm in my 40s now, probably earlier than 12.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Well, I think, you know, sometimes I think it depends on where you come from and where you grew up. Like, I have friends in the Northeast. They say F-bombs every, you know, every other word, and it almost doesn't even feel dirty. It feels natural coming out of them. I have a comic friend, you know, Jordan Jensen, and she, uh, she's, you know, doing very well in comedy now. And she opened for me one time, years ago, and I asked her to be clean. And, you know, uh, she said, you know, she said the F-bomb like 40 times. And she comes off, she goes, how was that? And I go, well, you said the F-bomb like 40 times. And I don't think she knew. I don't think she knew.

• 9:20Shawn Ryan?

  That's how I am. Yeah. I can't even, yeah, it's tough. It is real tough. I just, yeah, I'm trying to think of like a punishment to give myself every time I say one. So it's, it's somewhat of an inconvenience.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:35Shawn Ryan?

  But did you, did you just stop it? Like, was it just, you're just like, I'm not doing it anymore?

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think every time you become aware of something, then you, then, then when you do it, you think about it. And then maybe over time, it just becomes less and less because you're now aware that you're doing it. I think, you know, it's like, if you weren't aware, then you would, you would, you know, you'd never be stopping, right? It's like, with, like, with Christianity, in a sense, like the, like, you know, you repent, and the reason you're doing that is because you recognize that you're doing something wrong. If you're not, if you never recognize you're doing something wrong, and not that cussing is necessarily wrong, but you recognize it, and then, and then change happens.

• 10:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  That's what I think for me is it's like, when I realized that I wanted to be a cleaner comic, it didn't happen overnight because my mind already, like, I wasn't thinking that way. I was still thinking of dirty jokes. But once you go, oh, okay, well, I don't want to, I don't want to do that joke because I'm not trying to do that. Then slowly you start to, you just don't think that way anymore.

• 10:40Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  And then, you know, I still have some that pop up. Zany's here in town has a, a dark and dirty comedy night. And I did that show one night. And I, and I was doing my dirty jokes, but I still, you know, I seem like the Christian guy trying to do dirty jokes.

• 10:58Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Like, it just, it doesn't seem natural coming from me.

• 11:01Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Now, if you're in the car with me, uh, in traffic, you go, who is this guy?

• 11:10Shawn Ryan?

  I can relate, I can relate. You haven't, how long have you been off booze?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  I quit in two thousand twelve, uh, late January two thousand twelve.

• 11:20Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. How was, how, how did you, was that easy for you or was that tough?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's similar. I wanted to quit for years. I enjoyed it. I was having a blast. Uh, like I never was like, um, you know, I had this, I had a mental image of what an alcoholic was. I had a movie image of, you know, he's a guy, he's beating his wife, he's hiding liquor, he's drinking in the morning. And I go, well, I'm not doing those things, so I must not be an alcoholic. And then I read that Alcoholics Anonymous, the blue book.

• 11:53Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  And I go, oh, there's, there's a couple of guys in here that are like me where I'm fine really to not drink, but the moment I have a beer, then I'm like, I'm like, it's like something comes over me and I'm fueled and I'm ready to go. And then I can just drink all night.

• 12:11Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  And I, you know, I've, I've had throw up moments, but I'm more of a blackout guy. It's like my body just holds it all in and my mind shuts down. My eyes get glossy and there's a different person in there.

• 12:24Shawn Ryan?

  That's how I was. So you're what, fourteen years? Is it fourteen years?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, fourteen years.

• 12:29Shawn Ryan?

  I'm four years.

• 12:33Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, yeah, that's how I was, blackout.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, my buddy used to-

• 12:38Shawn Ryan?

  You ever seen a video of yourself blacked out?

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I've done my, I used to carry a camcorder because I thought it was fun. And I got many videos of myself. It's hard to watch.

• 12:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I know, man, I know.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Thankfully, it wasn't someone else's video showing me, you know, that showed up on the internet.

• 12:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  I'm very blessed to have done all my drinking before the internet became too popular.

• 13:03Shawn Ryan?

  Good point, good point. Well, let's do, uh, so like I said, I want to do a life story on you. So where did you grow up?

• 13:12Speaker 02

  I grew up in a town called Opelika, Alabama, uh, which is, uh, next to Auburn University. If, uh, you know, people are familiar with the S E C. But I, you know, I was, you know, my parents divorced when I was two or three. I always said two and then later after I did two jokes on two different albums, my dad told me it was three. So I go, I don't know, I don't know why you let me keep doing those jokes. But, um, but, uh, so I lived in, uh, Chambers County, Alabama, a town called Lafette, Alabama, when I, until I was two or three. And then my parents divorced and I moved to Opelika and, uh, and then I went back and forth, you know.

• 13:52Shawn Ryan?

  Close with both of them?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  I am close with both of them. Yeah, we have a good relationship, you know? I fight with my dad some, but we have a good relationship.

• 14:00Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. What were you into as a kid?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  I, I always like, I was always, you know, a bit of an artist. I loved drawing. Uh, I, you know, and I, I almost feel bad for kids today because when I was a kid, I drew because I was just bored out of my mind. My, my mom would take me to my grandmother's house. My grandmother lived, uh, you know, in Alabama. She had no air conditioner, she had no cable. And we just sat down there. My grandmother crocheted. It'd be, you know, a hundred degrees in the house. She's got an Afghan on her lap and she's crocheting away. My mom works third shift, so she's passed out down there. And I'm just sitting there with my grandmother and I, you know, I've, I've made many jokes about my grandmother being mean, but I,

• 14:48Speaker 02

  she just was not nice, you know? She grew up in the Great Depression. She lost a, I think, uh, she lost her first husband, maybe in World War Two. And then, you know, and then my grandfather, I think, was injured in training. So, you know, they just grew up poor and she was, and then he, my grandfather died at sixty-five when I was, you know, four or five. So, you know, she had a hard life and she just wasn't nice. This niceness wasn't in her. So I'm just hanging out with an oscillating fan occasionally hitting me, giving me a little relief. And I'm sitting on her floor drawing pictures. Cause that's all I have to do and I became very creative, I think, because of that.

• 15:32Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. What, why did your parents get divorced?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Um, you know, it's tough to say. My dad's a diehard Alabama fan. My mom's a diehard Auburn fan. I don't know if that played a role, but I just, I, I think about my parents and I, I wonder less about why they got divorced and more about how they even got married to each other in the first place. They're just different people. My dad is, uh, you know, my dad's like me. I think probably I'm a little controlling. I got a way. I, I sit around and I think about the way things should be. And I feel like I figure out the best way. This is how I should live my life. If everybody lived their life this way, it would be better. Is that right? I don't know, but in my mind, I've worked it out that it is and I think my dad is like that.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  And then my mom is like, go with the flow. We're having a good time out here. We're, we're living paycheck to paycheck because that's what money's for.

• 16:28Shawn Ryan?

  I read something about a car in a pond. You thought maybe that could be a potential reason?

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Could be too. You know, my parents had a, they said that was the, my dad said it was the newest car he had ever owned. And back then there were no car seats, at least that's what they tell me. I wasn't in one. I was twenty-one months old. Uh, was a bench seat car with a, uh, the gear shifter on the throttle or on the, on the dash, you know? And, uh, my mom says she checked the mail and needed to run it inside. So she just pulled the car up next to the house. My dad lives a little on a hill and while she was in there, I walked over. I don't remember. This is what they tell me. I walk over, I pulled it into drive or at least neutral and those cars, those old cars, they go.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  And the car started going. I drove it down. I crashed through a fence. Apparently turned it, went through between two trees where the door was still open and it closed the door. Where, and they said if I'd have hit one of those trees, I probably would have smashed into the windshield. And then I went through another fence and crashed into a pond. My mom can't swim. She goes running down the hill. She catches, she goes around to the driver's side. It's already sank down enough to where she can't open the door. She goes around to the passenger side, it won't open. And then she's able to get the back door open as the car's sinking and she grabs me out of the front seat.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  And, uh, and they, my, my, they, they towed the car out of the water later. And as the insurance adjuster's there, he's trying to decide if they're gonna total the car. And he says the windshield wipers just came on, on their own. So they totaled it.

• 18:15Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, and you were how old?

• 18:17Speaker 02

  Twenty-one months old.

• 18:18Shawn Ryan?

  Jeez.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  My mom said I never cried. That said when she opened the door, I go, mama, you know, and I'm just like, I'm just, you know, I'm having a good time in there.

• 18:30Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, wow.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  And, you know, my dad later, my dad used to own horses. I guess he still has some now, but we were riding around and he would do, he would go, uh, you know, he'd go cow and I would say cow and he would go, you know, barn and I would say barn and he goes pond and I said car. And, uh, so I, I associated car, car with crashing in the pond.

• 18:52Shawn Ryan?

  Sheesh.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  And then I've had a lot of wrecks since then. I mean, it's, you know, I just, I love wrecking a car out here, I guess.

• 19:00Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. So what, what, what kind of stuff were you into as a kid?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Well, you know, as I, as I got older, I mean, I, I loved, uh, I loved, uh, drawing. I loved, uh, insects. I loved, uh, for, I used to, I was always catching, I still am. To this day, I'm catching tadpoles out of a five gallon bucket at my house. I'm raising them into tree frogs and letting them go in a tree in my yard. But as a kid, I was always, you know, I was always collecting insects and putting them in jars and watching them and, uh, you know, I was a little mean to insects, you know, I used to catch worms and I would stomp on a fire ant bed and throw them in there. I don't think it was serial killer stuff because I wasn't doing it to animals. They say serial killers do it to animals. I've always loved animals, but bugs, I don't know, I loved, you know, you could say I was torturing the worm, but I was really feeding the ants.

• 19:50Shawn Ryan?

  Good point.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  You know?

• 19:51Shawn Ryan?

  So you, so do you, you, you still catch tadpoles, raise them into tree frogs and let them go?

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I-

• 19:57Shawn Ryan?

  Do you do that with, for your kids or you, this is a legit hobby?

• 20:02Speaker 02

  I like that I, I, I say that I'm doing it for my kids and they do like it. But I think I enjoy it more than they do. I really just love, I love, you know, these tadpoles were in a five gallon bucket and I thought, well, they're gonna die if I don't get them out of here. So I, I collected them and I put them in an aquarium. And then over time, I, you know, I bought a filter and I put rocks in there and I get, I get really into it and I feed them.

• 20:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do you live out in the woods?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  I, I ha, I'm in, I, I'm, the part of Nashville I'm in, I'm, I'm, you know, there's a million houses, but I happen to have found a, a spot with three acres.

• 20:37Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  So I have a little garden and I got, you know, I got an oak tree that's probably a hundred years old. Uh, it's a huge oak tree.

• 20:44Shawn Ryan?

  Stuff, man.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  I do too. And I'm, you know, I collected acorns last year and I, I, I grew a bunch of little oak trees and I'm, I'm not doing a great job keeping them alive, but I have, I probably still have fifty little oak trees that next year, or maybe even in the winter of this year, I'd like to plant them out and uh, try to, try to grow them up.

• 21:05Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  I have some land in McMinnville, Tennessee, where I have a little-

• 21:09Shawn Ryan?

  I almost moved to McMinnville.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah?

• 21:12Shawn Ryan?

  I love that town.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 21:13Shawn Ryan?

  Like nobody goes there.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I have a little Mennonite built cabin. And we go out there and hang out and I planted fruit trees and I mean, I'm all in, I wanna buy, I mean, I really would like to buy an excavator. I wanna dig my own holes. I wanna, I wanna get into it.

• 21:33Shawn Ryan?

  There's nothing more frustrating than putting in the work and still feeling like your body is not responding the way it used to. You're training, you're trying to eat right, you're trying to sleep, but energy still drops off, recovery takes longer, and you don't have that same drive that you used to have. That's why I started taking Mars Men. What I like about Mars Men is that it's not forcing hormones into your body. It's designed to help your body use more of what it's already producing. As men get older, SHBG can bind up testosterone. So even if your levels look fine on paper, a lot of it may not be available for your body to actually use.

• 22:14Shawn Ryan?

  Mars Men uses clinically dosed ingredients to help free up bound testosterone, plus vitamin D and zinc to support healthy T levels, energy, stamina, and recovery. And since taking it, I've noticed steadier energy and better recovery. It's not like a caffeine spike. It's more consistent drive throughout the day. Mars Men is made in the USA, third-party tested, and backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life, plus free shipping, and three free gifts at mengotomars.com/srs. Once again, that's mengotomars.com/srs for 50%

• 22:57Shawn Ryan?

  off and three free gifts when you check out. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

• 23:10Shawn Ryan?

  Are you a prepper?

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Well, I, you know, I like to be prepared, you know? I mean, I won't say that I don't have some food at home, and I won't say I don't have an entire room at my house filled with things that if something happens, we could eat for a little while.

• 23:28Shawn Ryan?

  Nice, nice.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  I just like to be, I don't like the idea that, you know, you even hear about towns where they have, you know, they'll have a flood, or they have something happens, and even just recently, we had the ice storm here. And if, if, you know, the power went out, we would have been okay for a little while. We would have been, I have heaters and, you know, sub-zero temperature sleeping bags. I mean, we would have been good to go. I don't want to freeze to death in my house because I go, I don't want to be called crazy. You know what I mean?

• 24:01Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I know what you mean. I mean, I don't care if people call me crazy. I love prepping.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, the word prepper comes from preparation, and somehow we've made being prepared a weird thing.

• 24:17Shawn Ryan?

  I don't even think it's that weird. I think it used to be weird.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe.

• 24:20Shawn Ryan?

  And then COVID hit.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:22Shawn Ryan?

  And then, and then, I don't know. I mean, COVID created a lot of preppers. I definitely stepped my game up after that.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, in the Bible, you know, in Genesis, we have, you know, there was a dream that was prophesied by Joseph, and he said, hey, this is saying you're gonna have seven years of feast and then seven years of famine, so be prepared. And they got prepared, and they survived. That's why I'm like, let me be prepared.

• 24:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man. Yeah. How often do you go to McMinnville?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  I don't go as often as I'd like, but we get out, you know, maybe once a month, maybe once every two months.

• 24:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  And we go out there, and I got, you know, I've built, it was a bit of a hilly land, so I built some swales, so that I planted fruit trees on there. So when the rain comes, it builds up in the, in the swales, and it, because I'm not out there to water them. So it keeps the, keeps the trees growing, and I got, I got, you know, just about every kind of fruit tree that will grow in this climate.

• 25:19Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  And I got a little creek down there. My kids love to go down and play in the creek, and...

• 25:25Shawn Ryan?

  What a great way to spend time with family, you know, just totally separated from, you know, everything.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, you know, I don't, we don't have internet out there, and we don't have great phone signal, which I like. We have it, so, you know, we can still make calls, but, you know, we're not, you know, we have no Wi-Fi at the house, and it's, it's nice because we, you know, we have a TV if we want, we'll watch a DVD, but we, you know, we can't just scroll YouTube all day out there.

• 25:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Very cool, very cool. So what else were you into as a kid, other than tortured insects and stomping on worms?

• 26:06Speaker 02

  You know, I liked, you know, I was, you know, I loved to play. Like, in the trailer park I lived in, there was woods on either side of us. So me and my friends, we would go, we would just spend the day in the woods. We, we had creeks, and even back then, I was collecting crawfish and little salamanders and tadpoles, and, and we, we would just, you know, run. I built a rope swing out in the woods, and, and then my, and my dad, my dad lives on a farm, and so he had land all around him, and we would find, you know, we would find vines, you know, like Tarzan out there, and we would swing on the vines over creeks, and my dad had four-wheelers,

• 26:46Speaker 02

  and we would ride, and we would go down to the Talaposa River, and we would, you know, my dad was always like, never swim in this river. And the moment we could get down there without him, we were swimming in the river. And we loved it. I mean, we were just, we're real country kids. I mean, we're riding, before we had four-wheelers, we're riding bikes down dirt roads, and it was just like, being outdoors was where it was at. There was a, a store up the, up the way from my dad's house where he had a, a charge account on there, and we would just go up there, and we would get ice cream and microwavable hamburgers, and, you know, we just were living a real country life.

• 27:26Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I feel like that, that's similar to how I grew up. I just feel like that doesn't, that rarely, it's a rarity now. Like, it almost doesn't exist.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  I don't, I mean, I'm, I'm paranoid enough to where I would never let my kids just disappear the way I used to disappear. And I want them to, but at the same time, you know, if I'm in a store with my kids and they go on the other aisle and I'm not on there, I'm like, you gotta, you know, I'm like yelling at them almost. Like, don't leave the aisle that I'm on.

• 27:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Because I, you know, it's just, I don't know if it is any scarier today than it used to be, but it feels like it.

• 28:04Shawn Ryan?

  I think it is.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  I think it is, too.

• 28:07Shawn Ryan?

  I think, yeah. Yeah, I, I think it is.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  I go, you know, you just, you know, we'll go and we'll have fun, but you stay with me.

• 28:16Shawn Ryan?

  There's just so much more you have to worry about nowadays than you, that you didn't

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:20Shawn Ryan?

  back then. Not that they did, that our parents didn't have to worry about stuff, but now there's just a whole new slew of things. And everything's so accessible, too, you know what I mean? And people have much more access to your kids through internet, social media, you know?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:38Shawn Ryan?

  There's a saying, my, one of my best friends, Ryan Montgomery, is saying, you know, when you give a kid a phone, you don't give your kid access to the world, you give the world access to your kid.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  So true. It's, yeah, it's so crazy. It's like, um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's wild. But, you know, my mom worked third shift, so I probably stayed at home by myself way earlier than I should have. But, you know, in the trailer park I lived in for a while, you know, my sisters lived there, but my sisters are nine and 11 years older than me. We have a different dad. So, you know, as they got older, they moved out, and then my, my other sister and brother-in-law lived next door to us in a trailer. So I would, you know, I would stay alone in my trailer, but they were next door. And I remember, you know, the old collect calls you would get where it would be, you know, this is AT&T, you have a collect call from,

• 29:30Speaker 02

  and then they would say their name. I remember once I woke up and the phone rang, and it said, you know, this is AT&T, you have a collect call from, I know where you live, you're dead. And I go, and I, you know, I jump up and run across to my sister's house and bang on the door. And then I stayed at her house for a long time, but they smoked cigarettes inside, you know? So I'm, I'm, you know, I'm getting, I'm smoked up all night, and then I'm going to school, and probably all my clothes, probably my hair smells like smoke.

• 29:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  You know?

• 30:00Shawn Ryan?

  Were you a good student?

• 30:02Speaker 02

  I was a good student. I, you know, I made A's and B's, you know, growing up. I remember in second grade, I was in classes, and I got, I got, they took me out of the class I was in to move me to a, a more advanced math class. So I think I, I might have been the only kid, you know, there were other kids that were in the advanced class for all subjects, but I might have been the only kid in second grade changing classes. And, you know, and I always did, you know, the advanced classes as I got older, you know, but, you know, once I, you know, I hated homework, and I never was much of a reader, so, you know, we had summer reading,

• 30:45Speaker 02

  and those were always the, and then when you get to school, you take two tests on the books that you were supposed to read, and those were always the first two tests that I would fail every year because I had no idea. I loved an essay question, because I'm a bit of a rambler, and an essay question, I can just write and write and write until the teacher goes, all right, I know you don't know what you're talking about, but I give you a couple points for this creativity here.

• 31:10Shawn Ryan?

  So did you, you primarily lived with your mom?

• 31:12Speaker 02

  I did, yeah. I had, my mom had custody and then every other weekend I went to my dad's.

• 31:16Shawn Ryan?

  And your dad had a farm?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  My dad had a farm and my dad got remarried when I was roughly five and he had, uh, his wife had two kids. So I had two stepbrothers for 10 years of my life and then they got divorced.

• 31:29Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  And they were older than me. So, you know, I went from, I was almost like, I felt like, you know, maybe the other kids don't feel like this, but I felt like I was king of the trailer park, right? I had all these other kids, but they all came to my house because my mom was asleep. She worked third shift. So we were, you know, we, we brought all the trash from the neighborhood to my house and we would build things out of it. Uh, I remember we had a cat one time. We were, we would build a cage obstacle course for the cat. We were just trying to see, can we trap this cat in here with all this wood? And the cat would always find a way out and we would, and then we would build a new thing. We weren't hurting the cat. I think the cat probably loved it. Uh, but we were always building an obstacle course and,

• 32:09Speaker 02

  but when I was at my dad's, you know, I had two older brothers. So I went from, you know, king of the trailer park to now I'm being picked on all day. You know?

• 32:18Shawn Ryan?

  So you liked being with your mom more probably?

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like that. I mean, I, I liked my parents, you know, but you know, my dad had all these cool things. My dad had a pool. My dad had four wheelers and, you know, but with my mom, you know, I was, you know, I was the king.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  I was the, you know, we, we didn't have the same things, but you know, I, you know, and I love both my parents, but it's a, yeah. I mean, it was a little more free when you're, you know, allowed to do basically whatever you want.

• 32:46Shawn Ryan?

  Do you start getting into trouble because you could do whatever you want?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I didn't really start getting into trouble because we lived far enough out to where there was really no trouble for me to get into. You know, but as I, once I got a driver's license, that's where the world opened up to me. And I was like, oh, now I can hang. And, you know, and, and by the time I got a driver's license, me and my mom had moved out of the trailer park and now we lived in a house just a mile away from the high school. So that's when, and then my mom was still working. My mom got a boyfriend that she was staying with a lot and her mom got sick. So she, my mom was gone all the time. And so my house became the party house.

• 33:30Shawn Ryan?

  So you went from a trailer park to a house?

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:33Shawn Ryan?

  How was that?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Uh, well, for me it was amazing. I mean, I, when I was a kid, I loved the trailer park. I hadn't, you know, I didn't think anything about it. I had a bunch of friends and we had all the woods to play in. But as I started to get older, I started to get a little self-conscious about living in a trailer. I was like, oh, I feel like I'm the poor kid all of a sudden. And I don't know where it came from. I don't think anybody was calling me poor, but it just kind of seeped into me this, like that, oh no, I feel like now I'm the poor kid and I don't want anybody to know that I live in a trailer park. And so

• 34:08Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when that started? When those starts started coming up?

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I would say, uh, about eighth grade. Um, we had Hurricane Opal come through, which, uh, you know, in Alabama, where I was at, you don't get a lot of hurricanes, but it kind of spawned up some tornadoes and some trees fell on our trailer, right? So we had, so then we, kids are starting to tell their stories about what happened to them in, in Opal. And I, you know, and I'm suddenly revealing that I'm living in a trailer and that our house is partially destroyed, even though we're living in it with a tarp over it right now. And, uh, and I don't know, I just think it started to occur to me. And then ninth grade, I moved to high school. That was probably, uh, the hardest year for me just internally.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  I don't think anything, I don't think anything was going on, but my best friend had moved away. Um, and, you know, I was just starting, I had a ton of friends, but just internally, I was starting to feel this like kind of self-conscious. I'm poor thing. And I don't even know where it was coming from.

• 35:11Shawn Ryan?

  Just a lot of insecurity.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:12Shawn Ryan?

  Self, self-induced insecurity.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Tom, Tommy Hilfiger was the cool clothes. All the, all the wealthy kids had Tommy Hilfiger. I didn't have a single Tommy Hilfiger thing. Uh, and I just, uh, it started to feel weird about the way I dressed and style was becoming more of a thing and I felt like I didn't, you know, I didn't have any of that. And then, you know, you, you, you know, just, I don't know, different things happen where you're like, you know, your parents aren't together and, and so you don't have, not that I didn't have a support system, but you feel like, you know, my parents don't get along. They're not agreeing with each other. So that's why I think, you know, if you have kids, I think marriage is so important because it just,

• 35:58Speaker 02

  you, you know, you keep in the, you, you're always this safety net for your kids.

• 36:02Shawn Ryan?

  How long have you been married?

• 36:04Speaker 02

  I got married in 2017, so nine years.

• 36:08Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. What do you think is the secret to a successful marriage?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  I don't know that I have any idea, but I, you know, I don't even, you know,

• 36:23Speaker 02

  like I've, I have two older sisters and they've been married, you know, for a long time. They have successful marriages. But I don't know if a successful marriage is anything other than just staying in the marriage, no matter what. It's just like, things, there's, there's times when things are like the happiest and you're like, oh, this is wonderful. What a great family. And then there's times where you're fighting and you, and you, it's like, I don't think anybody says that marriage is supposed to just be happiness all the time. I think it's just like, you just, when you go, like, that's why the vow is, uh, you know, uh,

• 37:02Speaker 02

  hard times and good sickness and health where it's like, it's gonna be hard. Life's gonna be hard sometimes. But I, I don't, um, you know, it's like, as far as marriage, like I, I'm like, I never give marriage advice because I'm like, I always feel like I'm new, even though I'm saying nine years now, but it's like, uh, I don't know. I mean, my, my, my, my mom was married twice. My dad was, is married four times. Now his latest marriage, uh, you know, is over 20 years and, uh, so I think that's a success, but, uh,

• 37:36Shawn Ryan?

  So over 20 years?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Over 20 years.

• 37:38Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  So, you know, he needed some, he needed some practice runs, you know? But I'm like, I, I don't know. To me, it's just like, when you have the fights, you don't think I want out of this. And I think that's, to me, that's the key is it's like, you go, yeah, we're fighting, but, and yeah, I'm mad. But this is what it is. We're gonna move past it and we're just gonna keep working and things are gonna be good again. And it's like, and they, they always are, you know, I've had many fights with my wife. Even before we were married, we were having married type fights where we go, what are we even doing?

• 38:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  But, you know, you love each other and you, uh, you keep going and, uh, you know, I mean, you know, I could be divorced by the time this podcast comes out, but

• 38:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I hope not.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  No, but it's like, you know, I, I love my wife and I don't want, you know, I don't want to ever be divorced and I don't want my kids to ever go through that. So you just, uh, I think the key is going, I'm in this for the long haul, no matter what.

• 38:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that, it doesn't, that, that option doesn't even, it's not an option.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:52Shawn Ryan?

  Doesn't even pop in my head, or my wife said, but I know, but, uh,

• 38:57Speaker 02

  And I think as long as you're both, you, as long as you both believe that, then you find a way to work out every situation.

• 39:05Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like you learned a lot of lessons from your parents' mistakes in, in marriage?

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Well, I don't ever remember them being married.

• 39:14Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  So I, I don't know, but I, I think that I just, you know, I learned that, you know, even though like both of my parents loved me, being divorced was hard on me.

• 39:26Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  So I, I, I think I learned that I don't want to do that, no matter what. Cause even now it still affects me in life. I'm 44 years old and if I want to go visit my parents, I'm still, if like, if I have four days, I spend two with my mom, two with my dad, rather than four with my parents. And I go, well, I don't want my kids to go through that. I don't want my kids to, you know, and even if my parents weren't doing it, it's always growing up. It felt like I was making a choice between my parents. And I never want my kids to go through that. I never want my kids to feel any guilt. I go, if I ask my kid, do you want to go with mom to the store or do you want to stay with me?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  I want that kid to freely go, I want to go with mom. And I go, cool. I'm not gonna act hurt about it. I'm not gonna be like, oh, I wanted you to hang with me. I go, if you want to go with your mom, go with your mom.

• 40:21Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool, man.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  You know, because it's like my problems are not my kids' problems.

• 40:29Shawn Ryan?

  That's tough, though.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, but I I just always wanted to be like, hey, whatever insecurities I'm dealing with in my life, I don't want that to be your problem. You're a little kid that I chose to bring into this world. And you should just be free to go, hey, this is how I feel. This is what I want. And I it's up to me to deal with it.

• 40:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. How did you meet your wife?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  My wife used to do comedy.

• 40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And my wife is Canadian. And I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, where I moved to when I was 21. And I was visiting New York City for a month because I wanted to. I my buddy was living there and he had a room come open. And I go, will you see if your landlord will let me rent that apartment for a month? I go, I want to keep my apartment in Charleston, but I want to see. What New York is like. I want to get a real feel for it. So I went there for a month and I was just doing the open mic scene. And my wife was just visiting for a week, sort of doing the same thing. And we met at an open mic. We and from there we.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  You know, we just started hanging out and then I wanted to move to New York. She wanted to move to New York.

• 41:44Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted to move to New York?

• 41:45Speaker 02

  I wanted to do it.

• 41:47Shawn Ryan?

  From from Alabama to South Carolina to New York?

• 41:51Speaker 02

  I felt like that was the way.

• 41:52Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, Dad.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And so. At the time, there was a couple of couple of people in the comedy business that I had met that I was talking to. And so me and my wife kind of made a plan that we were both gonna do it. We were both gonna move to New York. And then I ended up not doing.

• 42:11Shawn Ryan?

  After one week?

• 42:13Speaker 02

  After, well, I did a month. She did a week. I think she had already made up her mind. She wanted she was living in Toronto. So New York wasn't such a big change for her, except she's in America. Uh, for me, it would have been a wild change. But a guy I was talking to in the comedy business, when I got back, I told him what my plan was. And he kind of laid out for me, uh, two options in comedy. He goes, you know, you can move to New York. And you can work another job to pay an expensive rent while working the open mic scene. Or you could move to a city like Nashville. That's where he was living, but he he gave the example. He said Nashville is very centrally centrally located to the country. So you could start working all these other clubs, learning to work the road.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  In a in a short time, you could become a full time comic while learning the comedy business. And I go, actually, I love that idea. I like Nashville. I like I like country music. And I love the idea that I could not work another job.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  So I decided to move to Nashville. Hannah, my wife, went ahead and moved to New York. Now, she did it all wrong. Uh, she admits that now. She moved down with no paperwork, uh, no way to make money. Uh, so she just kind of found herself in New York. You know, not really able to do much.

• 43:37Shawn Ryan?

  Is she still dabble in comedy or?

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Well, she she ended up moving, uh, you know, down to Nashville with me. Like, we we kind of quit talking. You know, that our, you know, we had a fun, uh, hang in New York and then it kind of fizzled out. She assumed she would never see me again. And I was, oh, wow, I was, you know, trying to stay in contact with her. I would. Our we only had email, but I would email her periodically and just go, hey, how's it going? And? You know, and I might hear back from her and I might not. And but she was still doing comedy, working the Toronto scene after she moved back. She moved to New York and then moved back to Toronto. And I had a gig in Syracuse, New York, and then one in Michigan. And I noticed that there was a way that you could cut through Canada. Now, Toronto was a little detour.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  But I could cut through Canada. I had a few days. So I messaged her and I said, hey, if I come to Toronto, would you hang out with me? And she said, yeah. So when I left New York, I drove up to Toronto. I'd never been to Canada. And I drove up to Toronto. I'd got myself an Airbnb. And I got on a show and she came and hung out with me. And we like immediately like reconnected in in the way we were in New York. I ended up staying with her my whole time. I never stayed in my Airbnb. And then she I got I talked her into leaving with me. And we she went on my gigs with me to Michigan. I brought her down to Nashville for a few days. And then, uh, and then she flew home and, uh.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  And then then that was it. And then we started dating from there and she started working on getting her, uh, uh, work visa. And then and then I she, once she started that process, she wasn't allowed to leave Canada. So we would. So I had gigs in Ohio and Michigan and I would go up to Canada and we would meet in Windsor or hang out in Toronto and.

• 45:30Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  And we did that for a year. While I was working the road and then she finally she got the visa. But it was only a work visa. So she could a a work visa in entertainment. So she could only make money in entertainment. So I was making like no money. I mean, I'm traveling to do a weekend to make 250 bucks and, you know, a hundred of that goes to gas and food, you know. So but I was living in Nashville. I was living at the, uh, in the West Side and I was living in a big house with six other or five other dudes. And I had a tiny little apartment in there for 250 bucks a month, not insulated well in an attic, super hot in the summer, super cold in the winter. But I and my car was paid off. I had bought a car cash.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Uh, I saved up money and I was able to buy this car. It was a Volvo I bought with a hundred thousand miles. And I was driving that thing all over the country. I traded it in later with 317,000 miles.

• 46:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  I never got a Volvo sponsorship, uh, but, uh, but I I talked to them about how good that car was. And it was. It was a Volvo S60. Had a little speed to it. I remember driving through the upper upper peninsula of Michigan. Just no one around, just rolling out on these back roads. I mean, it was great. Uh, but. So she worked the road with me for years. Um, and a couple of years. And then, you know, once I started to have some success, make a little money, she confessed, uh, that she hated working the road. And I go, great, quit comedy if you want. I've finally made enough money to where you can quit.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  And, uh, you know, and she's done a few things here and there. She'd have a podcast or she ran a Instagram account for a while that was pretty successful, but. Uh, you know, we it it just really worked out. The the more success I had, the more we were able to just settle into a family life or she can stay with the kids and.

• 47:26Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  And, you know, I think she enjoys it most days.

• 47:29Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you propose to her?

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Well, in the most unromantic slash most romantic way, depending on how you look at it.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Her work visa was coming to a close and, uh, and, uh, you know, I I never thought about like for a long time, I I really thought that I I didn't want to get married because I was like, I don't know, it seems so complicated. If I love someone, we can just stay in that place or we can just be boyfriend, girlfriend, but maybe common law married. No need to get the government involved in it. But I the work visa was coming to an end and I and I was faced with a decision to where I was like, either we go through another long drawn out process of getting her

• 48:23Speaker 02

  uh, another visa, or I let the woman that I love go back to her country. Or I go, let's get married. And so that's what we did. We just kind of decided, let's get married. And so we did. And then we went through the green card process of, you know, proving to the government that this was a legit marriage and that we weren't just doing this for green card purposes. And we thought it would, you know, it was difficult. She had a lot of things she had to do, but like they wanted pictures of us together. So we put together, I mean, we're both creative people. We put together this storybook of our life. And we show up with a binder of pictures.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  And the lady was like, whoa, she's like, I don't need all this. And she took one or two pictures from but we had, you know, we had a written out thing. This is us in this place and this is our journey. We got into it.

• 49:18Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  But the lady, I think, was she was like, all right, I get it, guys.

• 49:21Shawn Ryan?

  You still have it?

• 49:22Speaker 02

  We do still have it. Yeah.

• 49:24Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool, man.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's cool. And and, you know, and then now she's a citizen. I mean, she went through the whole citizenship process. The moment she was eligible to do it, she did it. We would drive around and I would ask her the questions off the citizenship test and. Uh, you know, and she nailed it. And, you know, so she probably knows more about American history than I do. Even though I think I'm pretty good, but she really, you know, she's a reader.

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• 51:32Speaker 02

  You bought, did you go back and buy the trailer that you grew up in? Well, I, well, I did. Um, when I was eighteen, I, I, I, uh, now, some of these times get a little fuzzy. I was, you know, I was messing around with several substances at the time, but, uh, I, at eighteen, uh, or at nineteen, I was working at a Western Sizzling, which I think that I might have gotten closed. I did, uh, it was, uh, you know, it's been there since my childhood, so it was old, but I made a joke about it on Working Man about sweating, a guy sweating in the green beans while he's filling the buffet. Oh shit. And I just think it's a funny joke, but not long after the Netflix special, Western Sizzling shuts down.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Uh, so I don't know if it was me or not, but I would, I, as always, I'd like to apologize to them. But the guy had owned it for thirty years. I think genuinely, he was ready to retire. And so they sold it to a QuickTrip and they, uh, and it's a, you know, it's a nice spot now. But, uh, uh, so I was working at Western Sizzling and this guy who was in the army was, or who used to be in the army was in there and I got to talking to him one day and, you know, and at the time I was just, you know, I was just getting high all the time and I was just getting high and going to Western Sizzling and I wasn't going to college. I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life. And this guy told me about, he goes, I was in the army, you know, when I was younger and he's like, I got to see all these parts of the world and I got to do this and I go, that sounds awesome.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  So when I left, I went to the recruiter's office when I left work that day and I signed up to be in the army. Now, you know, I always like to say this, that, you know, it was purely selfish reasons. I have many friends in the military and I have a friend uh, who signed up for the military, the Marines around this same time. And we have vastly different reasons and vastly different stories. And I, I can, I could talk about his in just a second, but I, so I left and I joined and, uh, the recruiters were asking me about smoking weed and this and that, and we talked all through it. And then I, I joined. I went to, I went to, uh, Montgomery and did a physical and did the whole thing and then

• 53:48Speaker 02

  when we got back to the station, the recruiter was like, he goes, he goes, I probably shouldn't tell you this. He goes, but I know you like to smoke weed. And he goes, in thirty days, you're gonna get shipped off. And, uh, so if you wanna do it again, do it tonight, because this is the time that you have. So then that night I got arrested for underage consumption of alcohol and possession of marijuana. And my court date came after my ship off date. So I, you know, I think I could have worked a, a deal to where I could go to the army instead of probation. But I had, you know, I had a signing bonus. I was going, I was going to Fort Benning. I was gonna go airborne.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  That was gonna get me a little extra bonus. I was gonna be a chef in the, or a cook in the army, which I had this whole grand plan. I go to the army, I make a little money for college. And then I learned to be a cook and I can maybe parlay that into a chef and then maybe one day I own my own restaurant. Something like that. I had a plan, but then, you know, I got arrested and, uh, and then I would have been, uh, in boot camp, uh, when September eleventh happened. So it was, you know, just a wild time and I, I don't know, a lot of times I think that maybe this was a, you know, a divine intervention where God kept me from going and because maybe he knew something would happen to me. I don't know.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Um, now, my friend, on the other hand, we went to high school together. He joined the Marines because of September eleventh and we were just talking recently. And, uh, not the Marines. He, he joined the army. He's, he, now, he runs the Army Ranger School in Columbus, Georgia. Oh, wow. And he's like, he's, you know, he's, you know, he gave me a, a coin recently, one of his, uh, Army Ranger coins and uh, you know, he's been deployed several times. But he, he's a different kinda guy than me. I'm an artist. Me and this guy weighed the same in, in high school and we were on the wrestling team together. And in order for me to ever wrestle in a tournament, I had to beat him. And I never could beat him.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Even one time he goes, he go, we were buddies. He goes, he goes, I got a, a girl I wanna go see this weekend and I don't wanna do the tournament. And he goes, so he goes, he goes, I'm gonna let you win. And then you go to the tournament. And I go, awesome. So we wrestled. I beat him. And the coach was like, the coach goes, I don't know. He goes, we're gonna have to do this again. Like, I think he just, he just didn't believe it. He knew my friend was letting me win. And so that's the kinda guy this, that he is. I mean, he's a, he's a jacked guy. I have no idea how we weighed the same. I got heavy bones or something. I don't know, but, uh, um,

• 56:43Speaker 02

  but yeah, okay, so my trailer, okay. So after that, um, I'm stuck now. Now I'm in, now I'm in my hometown now. So now I'm, I'm back to where I started. So I go, um, my sister, when I moved out of the trailer, my sister and her husband moved into the trailer. And then they traded it in like a car to a trailer dealership. So I go to the dealership and I ask, can I buy the trailer? And they sell it to me for a thousand dollars. So, uh, my childhood trailer at eighteen or nineteen, I now have back. And so I have, uh, so I moved back in with a buddy and we're living there and my, my brother-in-law worked for a cabinet company at the time, a very nice cabinet company.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  And this was at a time when, I don't know, the economy was amazing and things were going and somebody had ordered a set of these cabinets and it was the wrong color, so now they didn't want them. And they were just sitting in a warehouse. So I put in these two thousand dollar cabinets in this thousand dollar trailer. And it looks bad on the outside, but on the inside it looks great. I mean, it's phenomenal in there. And I'm living there and then I go to court. And I find out that my, I have a nine-month suspended driver's license. I'm on two years probation. Uh, I mean, they really hammered me. Uh, I had thousand dollars in fines. Not to mention my lawyer fees. My brother-in-law was kind enough to loan me a bunch of money, which

• 58:09Speaker 02

  uh, I would, it would take me a while to pay him back, but I did pay him back. And, uh, and then, you know, and, and that trailer is what I would use to later move to Charleston. I sold it for, I think I sold it for thirty-five hundred bucks. So I bought it for a thousand and I made twenty-five hundred bucks. Half of which went to pay my brother-in-law back and the other half, uh, would get me, um, it would get me to Charleston. Right on, right on. But yeah, you know, I would, but, you know, I think about, you know, like as thankful as I am that life went the way it went, I think about the policeman that arrests me who, you know, he's doing his job, but

• 58:51Speaker 02

  I was on a path to go to the army and now instead I'm sitting in a trailer, uh, doing drugs. Uh, because, you know, he was, uh, correcting me. But, you know, he was doing his job. I'm not mad at this guy. In fact, because of the way my, my life all turned out, I'm thankful to this guy. You know? It's one of those conflicting things where I think, uh, he gave me underage consumption of alcohol because I wasn't drunk. I had open container. So there was, you know, there was no breathalyzer involved. It wasn't a DUI. And then the weed, I know everybody says it, but the weed was my friend's weed that he stuffed in his beer bottle

• 59:34Speaker 02

  and put it under the seat. Now, neither of us knew what to do. We were kids. We had no idea what we were doing. But that weed then became mine because it was in my car. Gotcha.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Now, he got in trouble too. Looking back, there probably was an opportunity for me to just tell them, hey, this is mine. He didn't have anything to do with it, but, you know, I didn't know what was going on. So were you into hard drugs or weed and alcohol? Well, I mess around with some stuff, you know, that, uh, I got, I got this in my, my book that's coming out, this, I feel like so many of my stories I've shared and my, my, my whole drug thing is my one big secret in my book that, uh, uh, it, it actually is a kind of a thing that, uh, uh, I hope my, you know, I'm forty-four years old. I'm still worried about my parents finding out about, uh, drug use that I did.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Um, but, you know, we had fun. All, all drugs were fun to me. I don't know that I, I was, you know, I, I was, uh, blessed to never be addicted to anything and, uh, my, my only problem was alcohol really because I, I never viewed alcohol as bad. Like drugs, I go, this is bad. I shouldn't be doing this and this can't become my lifestyle. But, you know, I did acid and, uh, you know, ecstasy and all those sorts of things and, uh, recreationally, and that was, uh, had a blast. Sure, I had some bad trips. I, you know, freak out a little bit, but overall, I'm having a blast. It's all experimentation to me. I'm

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  listening to Pink Floyd and, uh, I'm thinking I'm opening my mind. And maybe I did, but maybe, you know, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe, maybe there's parts of the mind that need to be closed. Yeah, I would definitely agree with you on that one. You know? Yep. But, um,

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  You know, but you know, but yeah, I get out of that and uh.

• 1:01:35Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you in that?

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  I I would say two years I was in the trailer. Two years and and the thing about it was I I didn't have a driver's license, right?

• 1:01:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, are we talking about two? When I say get out of that, I was talking about drug use. Are you talking about the trailer?

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  I started doing some drugs about seventeen uh and uh and then I I was done by twenty one. You know, twenty one, I moved to Charleston and I was like Charleston's a beautiful city and I'm now legal to drink. So I'm just, you know, I'm just drinking around the city. I'm like, this is a blast. I mean, you know, and then there's, you know, various pain pills that pop up around which I think people now we do, but there was a time when we weren't really viewing that as drugs. This is this is legal medication that some people do recreational. But it's not it's not drugs, right? But later you realize that, well, these are,

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  some of these are very intense.

• 1:02:36Shawn Ryan?

  These are the worst kind.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah. I mean, I had, you know, I had friends that I knew in high school that got into, I think, OxyContin and, you know, they weren't doing it for, you know, medical use. I mean, these guy, I knew guys that were, you know, melting them down and shooting them up and some came out of it and some I have never seen again. I have no idea where they're at, you know?

• 1:03:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Wow. So you you cleaned it up at twenty one?

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I moved to Charleston and I just go, you know what? I'm I'm a I I basically moved with one friend. I moved with one guy that I knew and he was never into that stuff. He was always a, you know, he was going to college to be an X-ray tech and so he would come over to my, he would go to, he would get out of class and come over to my house and we would smoke weed together. But uh he was a buddy of mine and me and him just decided, let's get out of here. Let's go to Charleston. And we moved and he started working at the hospital and we just, you know, we were drinking and then he moved his girlfriend up and we had a fight and became, you know, I moved out. And we didn't talk for a little while, but now they're married with kids and he's still one of my best friends.

• 1:03:48Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome. Yeah, I went I went I went off unhinged on drugs for quite a while. So I could believe.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Well, you know, they're all they're all fun. And and until you you get to a point where you go, oh, this is not fun anymore. Now I'm just doing this. And and I I think I, you know, I I don't know, I've always been a Christian, right? I mean, I've always I've not always lived like one and, you know, sometimes it's debatable if I'm living like a Christian even now, but I, um.

• 1:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you say that?

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Well, you know, it's like, I don't know, when you when you if if Jesus is our example,

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  how often am I really living like Jesus, you know? And that's that's what I I think. I mean, I I try to be a good guy and I, you know, but I'm, you know, I I find myself I'm gossiping, I'm I'm, you know, I'm smoking, you know, I'm still doing weed here and there, I'm, you know, and I'm like, and then some of the things that I joke about, then I go, I don't know, I go, you know, I think I'm doing better than I ever have as a Christian, but I mean, back then, you know, you're like, you know, you're just living free, you're, you know, having premarital sex like it like it's no big deal and, you know, and and you're like, well, this is

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  not the example that's been set forth for me by Jesus, you know?

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  So that's why I would say it. I mean, you know, because your example can't be other Christians because they always will fall short, right? So or it's like when people idolize a preacher, they go, this is my guy. And then that preacher does something and they fall from grace and we all judge the preacher. They go, well, he's he's not the example. He's also just a man. And he's gonna, you know, he's gonna mess up.

• 1:05:53Shawn Ryan?

  Do you always keep that at the forefront with being like Jesus?

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:05:58Shawn Ryan?

  Always just constantly in your head, every decision, all that kind of stuff?

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Well, I wish it were every decision, right? I wish I prayed before everything I did, but often I often I don't, you know, I I just, you know, I think about that sometimes where I go, should I have called my friend to ask for advice before I just prayed about it? You know, I've heard that said where it's like, if you pray first, then you may actually hear God's advice. But if you ask everybody else in your life first and then pray, are you hearing God's advice or are you just being influenced by the other voices?

• 1:06:38Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's a good point.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  You know, and I I go, I wish that I were, you know, praying about every decision that I make and but yeah, I mean, I think Jesus should always be the example. But and I tell people that now. I go, I talk about Christianity and I go, you know, never, you know, I go, never look at me as the example because I'm I'm gonna fail you. Every preacher that you love will fail you and not because they're bad people because, you know, we're all flawed. And we live.

• 1:07:07Shawn Ryan?

  Do you so do you

• 1:07:10Shawn Ryan?

  genuinely curious here? So do you do you genuinely you you pray before a lot of decisions or or do you just think about, you know, what he would have done?

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  I do pray before a lot of decisions, uh, you know, I mean, you know, especially when with comedy, I mean, it's like, uh, comedy became.

• 1:07:29Shawn Ryan?

  Like, what's a big decision you've you've prayed about recently?

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Well, oh, recently, um.

• 1:07:36Shawn Ryan?

  Or any?

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, when I when I signed with my management that I have now, I I really prayed because I went, I got, you know, I got offered JFL, Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, which was a um, you know, it's a big deal and and I had no representation, right? So I, from that I had a really great set and I was really praying, you know, for that, praying that this would be good for me. And I had just a phenomenal set. I mean, it was like there's a bunch of comics and they're all very good. And I I had the set of the night. I mean, you know, and I don't I don't say that about many things. I don't feel like I'm necessarily uh good at a lot of things, but I am good at comedy, so I feel

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  okay saying that. If I were like just saying I'm good at everything, but I feel like I'm good at comedy. I feel like it comes natural to me. So I had the set of the night at at my JFL Unrept and so I had all these offers for management. I had offers for agents. And so it's like I had never had that before. I had never for for six years I did comedy uh in Charleston. Uh, and I'd never done a comedy club. No one, there was never any agent in front of me, any manager in front of me. I just did comedy for fun and now uh I'm four years into being full time and suddenly

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  I'm having all of these agents and managers want to sign with me. And I go, this is is scary to me, right? Because I'm like, I'm just a regular dude. I was not long ago, I was selling pesticides and waiting tables. Uh, and now I'm like, like Hollywood is like, like knocking at the door. And I'm, you know, I'm like, I want to make sure that I'm signed with the right people and I'm protected and, you know, and then in the end I signed with what I thought was the biggest and I still think the biggest management company that I had offered to me, but also my manager is a Christian.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  And I um I just I feel good about it. I feel like we really we really mesh well. And and my agent is a is a Christian, you know? And I, you know, I've met their families.

• 1:09:57Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  You know, my my agent is uh lives in Nebraska now. She's originally based in LA, but uh and I did comedy for her children's Catholic school two times. Uh, my agent, my manager still lives in LA, but met her uh husband and I've stayed, she, you know, she has a house in Colorado Springs where she grew up and I've, she's letting me stay at her house or basically a childhood home and you know, I just think they're good, regular people. And that's what I want. I want I want to do comedy at the highest level I can do it while also being a normal person. And also feeling free to talk about Christianity. I was really afraid to talk about it.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  And then I just felt like that it's like it's like really frowned upon in in entertainment. And I don't know why, maybe it's back to being in ninth grade where I feel like now I'm putting that fear on myself. Uh, but um when COVID happened, I started talking about it on my podcast. And then little by little, nothing bad ever happened. And I go, oh, great. And now half my podcast is talking about the Bible.

• 1:11:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we we we were uh talking to your people about it and they said something about you're going, you've really explored the Old Testament now.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Shawn Ryan?

  We kind of said, we just got to talk to you about it. What's that? What's going on?

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Well, in, you know, in 2012, when I quit drinking, I just uh I I did a total life change. I mean, I quit drinking and smoking cigarettes in the same day. Uh I I eventually, I was living downtown. I quit my job as a pesticide salesman, which was, you know, I I kind of make jokes about it and make light of it, but at the time it was the best job I ever had. It's a salaried position. I had health benefits. I had retirement and it was a good job, especially for a guy that didn't go to college. Uh and I was like, and I quit

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  that job. I sold my car. I I ended up uh the bed that I had slept on this bed for 10 years where I, you know, you know, it's disgusting, but I was, you know, an alcoholic. I've thrown up on the bed. I had peed on the bed and I'm like, this mattress is disgusting. I have a new life. You know what I mean? I say spilled lemonade on the bed uh in a joke, but you know, it's like I go home and I go home wasted and I go, the best way to not be hung over is to chug a huge glass of water before I go to sleep. It hydrates my body. Sometimes you wake up to pee. Most times you wake up to pee. Sometimes you

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  don't. You know what I mean? It's like, nobody wants to talk about pee in the bed, but you want to talk about what kind of drinker I was. I mean, that's where we're at, you know? Uh I peed, I I slept on my couch one time with a girlfriend of mine. I peed the couch and I and I wake up, she's not awake. I go, oh, good. I get up, I clean myself up, I put a towel down on the couch. Nobody knows. I go back to bed, you know? Uh, nobody knows. I'm I'm good at, I'm good at covering it up.

• 1:13:16Shawn Ryan?

  Did you just flip the cushion?

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Well, that night, I mean, she's on the cushion too, so I got you. I just put the towel down and, you know. Fortunately, my girlfriend at that time was also an alcoholic and so she was sound asleep. She might have woke up, thought she did it. We don't know.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Maybe she woke up and did the same thing, you know? Um but, you know, I just completely transformed my life. I even thought about, I was doing comedy pretty good at the time. I'd already, you know, I, late 2011, I won the local stand-up comedy competition, which was the pinnacle of Charleston stand-up comedy. So I was like, and I had, you know, it's not like I had not entered the contest before. Uh, you know, twice I didn't make it to the even the final round. And then this year I won and it was a big deal. So on the surface, everything was going great. I I had a girlfriend, I had uh won the comedy competition, my

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  job was good, but I just felt terrible. I was so like beat down from drinking that I I was like, I gotta, and you know, probably a lot of it was cigarettes. I mean, I was smoking so much, like, you know, I do a pack a day, but if I was, if I was drinking, you know, pack and a half, you know, just pounding cigarettes. And I remember waking up on the day that I, on the day that would be the first day of my sobriety, I tried to have a cigarette with my roommate and I just, like, I almost didn't have the lung strength to drag the cigarette and I go, what am I doing? And I threw it out and then later

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  that night, I mean, the nicotine craving was hitting me so much that I bought some dip and I dipped for three days. And on that third day, I was just like, I was in the car, I was still still selling pesticides, I was driving, I put a dip in and I just felt like that I was sinking into the ground. I can't describe it, but I was just like, I was like, all right, so I threw that out and then I, a little while later, I got to feeling better again. So I go, all right, I'll dip again. And that same feeling came back to me and I just threw the dip out and then I never, you know, never dipped again. I mean, for a year, I did no drinking, no weed, no nicotine. And slowly I got back into weed a little bit and I I mean, I, my weed use is so tiny that it almost doesn't

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  even count. To me, it doesn't. I like it, but it's not, I'm not super functional. Like, I can't do comedy high. I wouldn't be able to do this podcast high. And so I'm like, I barely do it. Sometimes at night I'll have a little puff and uh but I love cigars. I mean, cigars, I'm I'm heavy on the nicotine these days. I love cigars.

• 1:16:04Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  But but that's it. That's what I got. And uh but but I, you know, for that year, I I almost decided not to do comedy. I just was like turning over my life and I was reading the Bible in a new way and I had found this person and I started reading their blogs and they were kind of opening me up to these New Testament ideas that perhaps all the things that we believe have been done away with are maybe not done away with. And if you're, because I feel like what a lot of us do is we read the New Testament and then we read the Old Testament with a New Testament lens. Whereas if we read the New Testament

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  with an Old Testament lens, maybe it's not all done away with, right? Like I, I used to be, I mean, I was hitting a barbecue restaurant once a day, just about. I was pulled pork, I was ribs. And now I, you know, I haven't eaten pork since 2013 and I don't eat shellfish. I used to work at a seafood restaurant and I was just, I mean, I was, you know, I was basically stealing food off people's plates all day. Uh, when she, you know, but I'm I'm like, I don't, you know, I don't eat pork, I don't eat shellfish and.

• 1:17:19Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, shellfish? Is that uh, is there a thing on that? This is interesting you're bringing this up because I just interviewed uh Cardinal Burke, uh a Catholic.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Shawn Ryan?

  And uh he was, he, I asked him this exact, we did an Old Testament, New Testament kind of series and I asked him if the New Testament, if if the, you know, if it makes the Old Testament obsolete, he said, absolutely not. It reinforces it.

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's like, I mean, that's interesting that he would say that because I feel like most, you know, mainstream people and people with credibility and credentials and all of these things, so many of them disagree with me that even, you know, if I'm talking about this on the podcast, there will be lots of people that quote Paul and Acts and uh and that, you know, they'll use all these examples. And I'm not saying that I know, but to me, what I read in Acts and what I read in in in Paul's writings are not enough to say that I should do it. Now, if I'm wrong, the way I view it, if I'm wrong, then all

• 1:18:29Speaker 02

  I did was just not eat pork and shellfish. But if I'm right, if I'm right, then I went against Leviticus, a long chapter in Leviticus and a long chapter in Deuteronomy where it it said, God says, these are all the animals that I created. These are the ones that I've designed for you to eat and these are the ones that I've designed for you not to eat. And so, and he says, be holy as I am holy. And when you break down a lot of those animals, like, you know, deer and uh uh cows and sheep, uh all on their own, just eat grass. And then they have multiple stomachs and they they they, you know, they filter all

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  this food and this meat is very good. And a pig, on the other hand, has one stomach, will eat just about anything. They say pig's skin is tough enough that a snake can bite it and it won't affect it. Pigs don't sweat, so they just have a lot of toxins. And some uh scientific stuff I've seen shows that, I think Dr. Axe has actually uh said this, that pigs actually are more toxic. And, you know, so it's just bad for our body. And I just think that's God saying, hey, uh, this is good. I've designed this for you to eat and it's really good. And this is gonna be, this is gonna be bad for your body.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  And and then like when you get into fish, it's like fish with fins and scales are clean. And then you look at what they eat, most of those eat good stuff and then the ones that are bad are like shrimp and oysters and scallops and, you know, uh catfish and they're all kind of filters for the water.

• 1:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. I didn't know this.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  And I think sometimes I think, well, what if we didn't eat crab, lobster, shrimp, scallops, oysters? How clean might the oceans be? You know, if we left all of these filters in our water, we might have crystal clear oceans out here. I mean, maybe not. I mean, we do pollute a lot, but uh but, you know, and I don't mean us, I mean, the world. Uh but it's like, who knows? Maybe all of those things would filter all that out.

• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that's a good point. Yeah, you know, I've been, I don't know, I think about, I think that uh, whatever, probably get blasted for this conversation, who cares? But um, yeah, I I think it's like.

• 1:21:05Shawn Ryan?

  I'm new at this.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:07Shawn Ryan?

  I grew up Catholic, then I then I joined the SEAL teams and whatever. It just went away. I didn't even think about it until the last couple of years. I came back to Christianity and now I'm kind of back into, well, I'm kind of back into Catholicism because I like it. I like the structure. I like how serious they take.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Shawn Ryan?

  Things like communion, the sacraments. And I don't know, you know, I look like new age kind of Christianity and it's just, it's a, for me personally, I just view it as this is like an easy path. It's they've made it easy.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:45Shawn Ryan?

  Like, oh, you just have to believe and then you go to heaven. I don't know if I'm buying that. I don't know if I'm buying that because I think it takes a lot of work. You know what I mean? And being a Christian is like a real Christian, I think is hard. I'm trying to do it and and and it's just like, I don't know, man, I think you gotta,

• 1:22:06Shawn Ryan?

  like, you're talking about praying before every decision. I don't necessarily pray before every decision, but I think about like, I think about it, you know, what would he do in this specific scenario? Or if I if I reflect on things and I'm like, yeah, that that did really align, you know, and and,

• 1:22:28Shawn Ryan?

  but it's hard, like, like, we just started, we just started this with Cardinal Burke. We started, we're, because I haven't read the whole Bible and, you know, I don't understand most of what I have read. And so I've kind of turned over this new leaf where we're going to go through every single book of it on the show. And and and I've already started losing sponsors because of it.

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:55Shawn Ryan?

  Like, like, less than a week in, we have, we had, we have one cancel because they don't, they don't advertise on faith-based content.

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:04Shawn Ryan?

  And they've been with me forever.

• 1:23:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Shawn Ryan?

  And then we do this and they're like, we're out.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Well, Jesus says, if the world hateth you, remember that it first hateth me.

• 1:23:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but I mean, exactly. And it shows like, it's like, well, I could, I guess I could fold because all you got to do is believe, right? And then you go to heaven supposedly. But I don't, I just don't buy it. I think like, now it's like, oh, all right, this is going to be a hard road. And now you're really at an inflection point where it's like, well, I can either not do it because I'm infatuated with advertisers and money. Or that goes away, which you can't take with you anyways. You know, and and like to me, there is no, there's not really much of a decision to be made.

• 1:23:56Shawn Ryan?

  Like, I've chosen the path and you just kind of, you got to stick with it. Otherwise, you're just weak. I mean, could you imagine? Like, could you imagine going to Judgment Day and they're like, dude, you're a bitch?

• 1:24:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Shawn Ryan?

  Look at that. You had a decision right there in front of you and you took the bitch road.

• 1:24:14Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:24:15Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks.

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  What, well, what happened to me was during, like, because I was always sort of afraid of that same thing, right? Where I'm like, if I am outward about Christianity, what if I lose all my gigs? What if I, and then I, this path that I've chosen to go down, now I can't do it. And then COVID came and I lost all my gigs. And I just felt like it was like God saying to me, you can lose all your gigs anytime.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  He's like, I can take everything away from you immediately. And you, and I'm the one that gives, I'm the one that takes away and you're, you're worried? I, if you, I have, and I just keep thinking like, if I believe that I serve the Creator of everything and yet I'm afraid of the world that He created, then I don't know, I just feel like I gotta like, be in there, but I, you know, I also want to do it in a way that like, you know, you know, you don't, you know, I don't want to like run, run away people, you know, I don't want to run people off and which is what people think I'm doing

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  with the commandments, right? They like, now I'm at odds with a lot of Christians. Not only am I at odds with non-Christians, but also with Christians because I'm saying that we should do Christianity a different way, which is also following the Old Testament. But to me, it is the better way because I'm like, it gives you a structure. It's easy. It shows you what to do. You go, oh, I just read this and then I just do, this is what God's asking me to do. I just do this. And, you know, but also follow Jesus. I mean, it's like, it's, it's not, they go, you can't have works to get into heaven. I go, well, I'm not trying to get into heaven this way. Jesus is how I'm getting into heaven, but now that I have that, how do I live on earth?

• 1:26:14Speaker 02

  And I think the law is how you live on earth. That's not how you get to heaven. That's how we should be living on earth, which, you know, it's like, the greatest commandment Jesus says is love God, you know, with all your heart, mind, body and soul. I always misquote it. I think I add one too many things, but and that's what the commandments are. That's how you love God. And then the next is love your neighbor as yourself, which is, you know, that's, you know, that's how we treat everyone else, which also, if we are following the commandments, then we're also loving our neighbors well.

• 1:26:53Speaker 02

  And and and, you know, and it's like, there, there is a scary verse where, you know, it says, you know, many people, this is Jesus talking, many people will say unto me that, in that day, Lord, Lord, and I will say, depart from me, I never knew you, ye that work iniquity. You know, and iniquity translates, many translations, but translates to lawlessness or those who lived as though there is no law.

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  And I just, it's a scary verse to me where I go, I, now that I have the information I have, I can't just go, and then, and then if I read Paul, I just got to think, I'm misunderstanding what Paul's saying because Paul can't be saying you don't have to follow what God said. Or, you know, like, where's he getting it from? That's my question for people always.

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:27:51Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 1:27:52Speaker 02

  And it, and that's what I think, the Bible should be a journey and we should all be having these sorts of conversations where we're debating over what the Bible says in an order to serve God better, not in a way to serve Him less, you know? And it'd be constructive and, but I, I find that, you know, people will get upset with me. They show me a verse and that verse is supposed to make me go, oh, you're right.

• 1:28:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  Rather than dive deeper.

• 1:28:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, we, we get a lot of that, too.

• 1:28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Shawn Ryan?

  We get a lot of judgments.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, you know, the Bible, you know, people also say that the Bible says that we shouldn't judge and it says we should have righteous judgment where we, we judge our brothers and sisters and in Jesus by using the Bible and we say, hey, this is what it says we should do. And I shouldn't pass judgment and go, you're wrong, you're bad, but go, hey, this is what the Bible says. This is how we should be doing it. And then we, you know, this utopia that I think we all would like to live in would be, in my belief, if we all, you know, just, you know, we treated each other better and the Bible tells us how to do that.

• 1:29:07Shawn Ryan?

  Love it. Dusty, let's take a quick break.

• 1:29:13Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:30:35Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:31:17Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:31:31Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:31:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, so we were just chatting about

• 1:31:43Shawn Ryan?

  Christianity, Old Testament, the law. You brought up gossip. Dude, that's a, that's a hard one.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Shawn Ryan?

  I'm working on that one right now, too.

• 1:31:54Speaker 02

  It's so hard, uh, because I think about it in so many different ways, even like, uh, like, I think we think about sometimes like celebrities or even politicians that we say that we don't like. It's like, it's still, uh, in the, and we could talk about them and it's like, it's still, like, you're, you're bad mouthing people and you're, and you're like gossiping about them. And I just think it's weird. Like, I found myself, I was watching this YouTube channel this weekend and it was talking about some other comics and, uh, you know, really kind of trashing some other comics. And, you know, I was just watching it. And I go, is that good? Am I like,

• 1:32:38Speaker 02

  even if I disagree with them, am I still participating in the gossip of this YouTube channel?

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  And it, it's like, and that, that, to me, that goes back to, uh, you know, loving your neighbor. Are you, are you loving your neighbor if you're just trash talking them? Like, cause I often say this, this is, and I feel like this is covering me. I go, I'm not, I'm not trying to trash talk them, but then I'll say some things and I go, but am I trash talking them?

• 1:33:06Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  Is it gossip if you just say true things about someone that you think are negative? And I don't know. I feel like it's not good.

• 1:33:16Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know. I mean, I don't know about the, the politician stuff. I mean, that is, I mean, you're under, you, I mean, because I also, don't you think it might be maybe not good if you say nothing when bad is, you know, wrong is being done?

• 1:33:33Speaker 02

  Well, that's true, too. That's true. And that's why it's like-

• 1:33:35Shawn Ryan?

  They're making decisions that are affecting not only, you know, us as US citizens, but the entire world. Yeah. So that, I, I, I mean, me personally, I feel like, you know, sometimes maybe you have a responsibility to say something.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  And maybe that is righteous judgment. You know, but I, I just, you know, and all of these things I always think about just my own self, right? Like when I have these thoughts where I go about this or that, I go, I, I'm thinking about what I should do for my own self, you know, it's like, because, you know, I, I don't know. I don't, I don't always have the answers.

• 1:34:10Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I, I'm just curious, your thought process. I mean, you know, talking, uh, you know, gossip about a, whatever, insert, uh, public figure, celebrity, comedian, musician, whatever. You know, that's, is that, is that, I mean, they're not making decisions that are going to affect your life in your kid's life and your kid's kid's, kid's life.

• 1:34:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's, that just seems, you know, oh, look at so and so. They look like, you know, look at her, she looks fat on the beach. You know what I mean? Or, or here she is without her makeup, or so and so had, you know, an affair, whatever, you know?

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:34:53Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's one thing, but then for a politician, you know what I mean, who is, I mean, it's going to affect our kids, kids, kids.

• 1:35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:02Shawn Ryan?

  You know, these decisions that are made and a lot of the decisions, it's a lot of selfishness, selfishness up there.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  And I think, yeah, critiquing someone would be different than me making the joke that Joe Biden walks like one of Elon Musk robots. You know, and, uh, and that's funny to me, hilarious to me. When you see a side by side of the two of them walking on the beach and you go, they do walk the same. But is that gossip? And we're not talking about a decision that he's making that would be bad for me, you know? And that's what I think. I mean, I grew up with trash talk. I mean, you know, my, I had, you know, I had an overweight uncle and he would come to the house and, and my dad would always go, that poor truck, you know, that he was driving, you know, he would, or he would see a, a larger person sitting on a swing and he'd go, man, they really testing that swing.

• 1:35:52Speaker 02

  You know, and it's funny, but it, that's bad, right? I mean, that's, that's gossip. That's maybe not gossip, but you know, you're trash talking people.

• 1:36:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I don't know. I guess I always thought of gossip as, I mean, I don't know. Is it good? No. Well, humor, I don't think ever hurt anybody behind, but.

• 1:36:13Speaker 02

  But maybe the gossip, like-

• 1:36:15Shawn Ryan?

  The gossip to me is more like, um,

• 1:36:22Shawn Ryan?

  rumors, spreading rumors, you know?

• 1:36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe. And I hope you're right because I'll be-

• 1:36:29Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not, I'm not saying I'm right.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  I'll be a lot more in the clear because I don't, I'm not spreading rumors, but man, especially as a comedian, it's really hard to not make fun of people in certain situations because that's what I like to do. You know, I like to make jokes.

• 1:36:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. How did you get into, what, I mean, what, what sent you down the path of, of reading the law in Leviticus? I mean, what, what?

• 1:36:56Speaker 02

  Well-

• 1:36:57Shawn Ryan?

  Is it a certain denomination? Somebody push you towards it?

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  It was a, uh, it was just a website that I found and this lady had a bunch of blogs. And I just started reading them and as I was reading them, I go, wow, this really makes sense to me. Like people will use Acts 10, for example, Acts is a Peter on the rooftop story and they'll use that to say why food is clean now. This is, food is clean now because they say Peter was on the rooftop. He was praying. And, and, and he heard God and God sent down a sheet and on the sheet was all kinds of animals, clean, unclean animals, all kinds of things. And God says, Peter, kill, rise, kill and eat. And Peter says, not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And God says, do not call

• 1:37:45Speaker 02

  unclean what I have made clean, right? And then the, and he does that three times and then the sheet goes back up. And so everybody says, well, that's God saying food is clean. But Peter says that he was very confused about the vision, that it didn't make sense to him what that vision was. And throughout, the, the verse goes on, the chapter goes on and he, he goes, he, he's still, many times it references how he's still thinking about that vision. And later a guy named Cornelius came to him. Cornelius was a Gentile and it would be, uh, you know, unlawful for Peter being a Jewish guy to meet with this Gentile.

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  And after talking with him for some time, he says that I now understand what that vision means. And that he's saying that God has declared this Cornelius to be clean and that I, that I should not be considering other human beings unclean. And he, he, uh, just, you know, he, he details what the vision is. He interprets that vision for us and that it's, if those people are believers in Jesus and in, in God and they're, he says he was a righteous man, that we should not call them common or unclean.

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  And it, and that, you know, and if, if it went on to say, and then they, you know, killed a pig and ate it. Uh, then we would go, okay, well, I guess it means that too. But they, they never do. There's never a, a time when they're talking about eating pork. There's never a, uh, Jesus's only interaction with pigs is when he sends a, a demon into a herd of pigs and runs them off a cliff.

• 1:39:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  And listen, you know, I know people, people own barbecue restaurants and pig farms and this kind of information, if it caught on, would be devastating to their farms and restaurants, but it is just what I believe as a Christian.

• 1:39:47Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. Does your wife all on board with this?

• 1:39:50Speaker 02

  My, my wife doesn't, uh, you know, and I don't force her to, but I, I don't know that she always, you know, because she, you know, if you read mainstream Christianity or talk to almost any preacher, they're going to disagree with me. So it, you really have to, but I'm convinced. I, I've read the Bible. I've prayed about it many times. I've prayed earnestly and hum- humbly that if I'm wrong about this, I pray that I would be shown that I'm wrong. Because it, it doesn't do anything for me, uh, career wise or, uh, friend wise, or it doesn't gain me anything to believe this. So

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  if God, if I'm wrong, I'm like, show me that I'm wrong. And then I can just go back to, you know, being a normal Christian with everybody else. But, uh, you know, so far it's, I don't know, just nothing is really hit me in a way where I go, nah, this is, this is it.

• 1:40:50Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. What's the blog?

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  For everybody else?

• 1:40:56Shawn Ryan?

  That you were talking about that got you into this? I'm just curious. You said it was a blog?

• 1:40:59Speaker 02

  Well, it, I don't even know if it exists anymore. It was a lady named, uh, Maria Marola. And I never like to reveal sources because, uh, you know, Maria Marola may believe other things that I, I don't believe, right? You know, so it's like, I just know that some of the things that she said made me think in a way that I go, well, let me, let me do some of this reading for myself and be a little more open minded about it. Uh, because I know there, there were things later that I, I disagreed with her on and I don't know that there's anyone that I agree with everything they say.

• 1:41:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Speaker 02

  And I believe that, you know, even in the Bible, God uses, you know, quote unquote, bad people to do his will, you know? Uh, so it's like, you know, if I were to say, like even like, let's take Moses and it's like, uh, you know, what do you agree with everything that Moses does? Well, I go, well, not when he killed that guy. I don't agree with him killing the guy, you know?

• 1:42:04Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:06Speaker 02

  And, you know, even King David, who's, uh, you know, he, he, King David, uh, you know, lusted after a woman and then took her, uh, as his wife and then to cover for what he had done, he sent her husband to the front lines of the army to have him be killed. Uh, you know, I don't agree with that. But, you know, I, I think, you know, David was uh, used for God's purposes. And I think, you know, he wrote Psalms and he's, you know, he, he had a, I think overall had a good heart, but you know, had some flaws like everyone.

• 1:42:47Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting stuff.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  And I, you know, and I, you know, I, you know, I have my own flaws and, uh, you know, and I, I don't want anyone to look at me and go, I want to live like that guy. I want them to look at Jesus and, and, and live like him and then be better than me. I feel like sometimes there, there's a thing with kids where I've, I've seen people in my own life that I feel like they don't want their kids to be better than them, you know, like almost like it, it, it would, it would hurt them. That's exactly what I want for my kids. I want my kids to be better than me. I want my kids to be way better than me. I want them to take what I've done and go, all right, my dad has given me this opportunity and now I'm going to take that to the next level.

• 1:43:32Speaker 02

  I'm going to be better than my dad. And I don't mean they have to trash me, but you know, be better than me.

• 1:43:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. How do you, you know, we were kind of chatting about this, uh, before the, before we started here. You know, how do you handle being a dad and a husband on the road? The majority of the weekends throughout the year.

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I try to minimize my travel as much as I can, right? I, I go for the most part. Now I'm in a sort of a busy season right now. I got, you know, the book is coming out and then I, you know, I'll have to, you know, I'll be doing podcasts to promote the book and then, uh, I, I, I was saying I have to go record the audio portion of my book next week, which will take some time. But for the most part, what I try to do is I do theater gigs now, and so I try to do Friday and Saturday in the theater and then go home. So typically I try to fly out on Friday, gone for two nights, back home. It doesn't always work out that way. You know, I do corporates and stuff like that where, you know, like this week I'm, I'm all, I have a, a corporate

• 1:44:36Speaker 02

  and then I got gigs on the weekends and, but, uh, you know, then I do two podcasts a week on my own every week, but I, I, my justification is like, well, if I had a regular job, I was a regular nine to fiver. Every day I would leave the house at, you know, eight AM and then I'd get home at five or six, if I was lucky. And then I'd be gone 40 or 50 hours a week. Uh, but I, I would be home every night with my kids, but I would be gone all the time during the day. This way I'm like, when I'm gone, I'm gone, but when I'm home, I'm home. You know, so when I'm home, I have, you know, three or four days to spend with my kids.

• 1:45:18Speaker 02

  And then I'll be gone for two or three days, but then I'm home for, you know, three or four days where we have full days.

• 1:45:25Shawn Ryan?

  Where your kids go to school?

• 1:45:27Speaker 02

  My kids, my kids are, uh, my daughter is just five, so she's the only one. And right now, uh, we've made the decision to homeschool for kindergarten. We don't know what we'll do after that. I feel like kindergarten's pretty easy. And we already, I mean, my daughter's already, I don't want to say she's reading, but you can read a little book with her and she can do most of the reading. She has to carefully sound out the words, but she can do it. And then she's doing math and, uh, she can draw a lot of, I think she can draw all the letters, but she can write some words. And so I, I feel good about what we're doing.

• 1:46:04Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:46:05Speaker 02

  And then we also go to a co-op once a week where she does meet with other kids and, uh, and then we've been going to a, a church on Wednesday nights just to be around other kids and stuff.

• 1:46:15Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. Yeah, I was just curious, you know, if they go to, if they do a traditional go to school. We're dabbling back and forth with both of those two, homeschool, traditional, but, um, I, I don't know. It's just something I think about all the time. Is, is, is when is, when is enough enough? And I mean, do you ever think, what's your perfect, like, if money wasn't an issue at all? Not like, wasn't even a thing, what, what your life would look like, what would you want it to be?

• 1:46:49Speaker 02

  Uh, well, it's hard.

• 1:46:50Shawn Ryan?

  Men mill at the cabin?

• 1:46:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard because I think that we're like supposed to work.

• 1:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:46:56Speaker 02

  Right? I feel like, like, I understand retirement. If you've had a really hard job your whole life and at the end you go, I just want some years to enjoy myself. But I do think that we're supposed to work, you know, I think it's good for us. I think it gives us, you know, whether that work be like my wife doesn't necessarily have a job, but I most certainly think what she does at home is work. You know, she maintains our house, she educates our kids. So I definitely think that it's work. But yeah, I mean, I'd love to, I'd love to, uh, like I got into this whole, uh, um, what they call a food forest or, um, now I can't think of the actual kind of word they use for it. It'll come to me.

• 1:47:40Speaker 02

  But where you, you design basically, uh, a plot of land where you're basically build a forest, but everything that's growing is food bearing in some way. Where you might start with a, you know, maybe you start with oak trees, so they have their acorns, or maybe even a black walnut tree or something. I'm not an expert. I know black walnut trees can send, uh, roots out that kill other things. But let's say a nut tree that grows big, that's your top canopy. And then you have fruit trees, which will be smaller trees. And then you have bushes, like our blueberry bushes and, uh, and then you get down to the bottom and you have a ground cover, which could be strawberries or thyme or things like that.

• 1:48:25Speaker 02

  So you've, you've created this whole ecosystem that's all food bearing. So you could just walk through there and pick food. And the idea would be that it never needs fertilizer and it never needs pesticides because as fruit drops and decomposes into the ground, it's acting as a fertilizer. And as you prune it, you also just drop those, the leaves will fertilize it. And then different things, different herbs work as insecticides. So, you know, like if you plant supposedly, I've never made it work yet, but suppose if you, if you plant rosemary or oregano or thyme, it, it, or basil, it sends off kind of smells and scents that insects don't like.

• 1:49:08Speaker 02

  So they won't, you know, attack your trees. So I would love, there's a guy I watch sometimes on YouTube called Andrew Millicent and he's out of Oregon State and he's like, uh, doing all this stuff with water. He's, he's been going to, uh, or at least documenting things in India and Africa. They're doing where they're using swales as ways to trap the rainwater as it comes down. Because a lot of these desert climates have, you know, long dry seasons. And then when the water comes, it comes rapidly. And so when the, it's already a desert, it just goes away.

• 1:49:47Speaker 02

  But if they have little different pockets of swales to block them in, then they can sink into the soil and then plants can grow. And they're like, they're like bringing back Greenland into the desert.

• 1:50:01Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:50:01Speaker 02

  Through the, and I, and I, I mean, I'd love the free time to just buy some land in Phoenix and just see if I could do it.

• 1:50:12Speaker 02

  You know, just I get, get an excavator and get out there and dig up some holes and see if I could turn some barren land into something.

• 1:50:22Shawn Ryan?

  That would be cool.

• 1:50:23Speaker 02

  But now in McMenville, I have no time, uh, to go prune my trees. I had an apron, I had a, I had a, uh, avocado tree that I've been growing for years that I would just, in the wintertime I bring it inside and in the summertime I put it out. And then I was gone for a stretch and I got real hot, got real dry. And because we had had so much rain, I never thought about watering it while I was gone because we had so much rain. And then, you know, my, my wife's not into plants the way that I am and doesn't really seem to have an eye for a plant that's dying. And, uh, so while I was gone, uh, it really dried up. I don't think it's dead, but it looks bad.

• 1:51:04Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have a greenhouse?

• 1:51:06Speaker 02

  I, I don't have a greenhouse. I, I had a kind of a makeshift one, but we have this wind in Nashville and it tore it up. So.

• 1:51:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's something I would like to get into. I, I just, I don't have the time right now either.

• 1:51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:22Speaker 02

  And you know, even, you know, like you say, if money's no object, you know, I just hire some, uh, you know, a maintenance guy for the garden and he just comes in and watches over it.

• 1:51:34Speaker 02

  That's what I'd like to do. I mean, I had guys come build these swales in McMenville. And, and trees I planted two years before that are just on a slope. Cause in, it's all red clay, right? So when it gets dry, it gets real hard. So the rain comes in, just runs right down. But if you have the swale, it gets caught and then it sinks down in. So the trees that are two years younger on the swales have trunks like this. Whereas the trees that are older on the slope have still tiny trunks because they're not getting the water that they need. And I'm not out there able to do it.

• 1:52:09Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm like, so it works. If I just had more time to invest into this project. And I, and I think I will have that time at some point. I just got to get there. I gotta get one of my kids into this. And then, then we'll be on, we'll, we'll.

• 1:52:29Shawn Ryan?

  You are into it.

• 1:52:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. What about animals? You raise any animals?

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  I don't have any animals. I'm not a big pet guy.

• 1:52:37Shawn Ryan?

  No chickens?

• 1:52:38Speaker 02

  No, I see. I'd love chickens. I'd love to get chickens, sheep. I'd love a cow. I mean, I got three acres. I can't talk my wife into letting us turn the, our yard into a pasture, which is understandable. But I'd love a cow, uh, or even some sheep. And they say chickens are the first, chickens are the gateway animal to the homestead.

• 1:53:00Speaker 02

  But, you know, I'm, my, my baby is five months old right now, so I'm like, let's give, let's let the baby get older.

• 1:53:07Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:08Speaker 02

  And then I'll bring in some chickens.

• 1:53:09Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man, right on.

• 1:53:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm into oak trees. I mean, oak trees take fifty years to get uh, to any size, right? But I feel like we just bulldoze the oak trees all the time. So I go, if I don't plant the oak trees, will my kids or my kids' kids even have any oak trees to look at?

• 1:53:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:33Shawn Ryan?

  We got some awesome oaks out here.

• 1:53:35Speaker 02

  Oaks are the best. I saw some oaks coming in. It's, they're the best.

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  I love an oak tree.

• 1:53:42Shawn Ryan?

  So let's go back to South Carolina. So you moved to South Carolina, and that's kinda where the comedy.

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I moved there in about 2003.

• 1:53:49Shawn Ryan?

  Started taking off.

• 1:53:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I moved there about 2003 with, with my, my, one of my childhood best friends. And we had a falling out almost right away. We had never done anything like this. Both of us were broke. I was especially broke. I had a little money to move there, but I was working at Office Depot. I was making, I was making seven twenty-five an hour, I think. And uh, my rent went way up moving to Charleston. So, I didn't have any friends. Uh, my friend, me and my friend were fighting a lot because his girlfriend moved up with him, and I didn't have any friends. So I saw in a newspaper, the Charleston City Paper, there's an advertisement for uh, improv classes, comedy improv classes. And I had only seen, like, whose line is it anyway? Uh, but I thought, well, that seems fun. I'll do that.

• 1:54:35Speaker 02

  So I took that class, and then I started to meet people. And uh, I ended up, me and my roommate, we split and I moved in with one of the guys that I met at improv classes. Uh, and then, from improv, I met some other people, and they were like, you should try stand-up. And we didn't have a club, but we had some stuff going on in town. So I, I did stand-up, and I liked it pretty well. But, so I did that from like two thou-, end of 2003 to like 2005. But then I moved to Folly Beach, and I was just drinking, and, and I was having a good time. And I bombed a couple of times at comedy, and I was like, I don't like the way that makes me feel. And I'm having a great time just hanging on

• 1:55:17Speaker 02

  the beach. So for the next three years, I just partied, and I sold pesticides and waited tables and drank on the beach. And then in 2008, uh, a nut, the same friend came back to me and said, hey, I'm doing this show now at Theater 99, which is where I took the improv classes, where I would pursue comedy all the way, which I just, this past Thursday, was able to do stand-up there, because the building has been sold and they're closing that theater. Uh, so I, I got to do a real end of an era type show.

• 1:55:52Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:55:52Speaker 02

  Uh, but the um, but I, I, in 2008, I went back and I did this uh, letters of the alphabet bit, which I have a YouTube, I have, I now have an animated version of that on YouTube, where I, I just kinda gave a few letters of the alphabet, some human characteristics. It's my most creative, weirdest bit that I, I never want to do live again because it's complicated. But, but I did it, and I did it sober on stage. And it just felt so good, that I was like, this, I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to do stand-up. And then, so for the next four years, I would do stand-up in Charleston as a hobby, uh,

• 1:56:36Speaker 02

  drinking. Uh, I did it sober that one time, and I go, that felt good. And then I would start drinking while I was doing it. But, uh, so for the next four years, I would just be doing comedy in this way, drinking, partying, hanging out with my buddies and doing comedy, but I loved it. I was good at it. And then by the end of uh, 2011 is when I would win that comedy competition. And I, and, and then in 2012, I quit drinking. And I spent the next two years in Charleston sober, doing comedy. And, and by, by the end of 2012, I entered that same comedy competition. And I think somebody told me, in 2011, I won

• 1:57:17Speaker 02

  by two votes. And in 2012, after a year of being sober doing comedy, I won by like a landslide. Like, there was no one even close to me.

• 1:57:28Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  Because I just got focused, and I got really honed in. And I also, you know, I didn't have anything to do. I, I didn't have a real job. I was waiting tables three days a week. And I was just going to coffee shops, writing jokes.

• 1:57:42Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever, have you ever just had a total bomb?

• 1:57:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:57:46Shawn Ryan?

  How could, what was the worst one?

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  Well, this, this one particular gig I, I did in uh, I don't know, there, there's varying degrees of bombs. There's like a bomb where you're like, the circumstances were all bad for this. There was, was all wrong. This should never have been set up this way. And then there's a bomb where people are in their seats at a comedy club, looking straight at you. And uh, you go, I, I just bombed here. I opened for Aries Spears in Richmond, Virginia, at the Funny Bone. And uh, I had opened for Aries Spears before, but we had a, we were doing, you know, traditional host, feature, headliner, and I was the

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  feature. So a host went up, this was in Kansas City, a host went up, did ten minutes, and then I go up to do my twenty or thirty. And in Kansas City, it was like, I was uh, blowing up the room. I mean, it's like, people were, you know, laughing. It was a great set. So I'm excited to work with Aries again, but this time in Richmond, it's a two-man show, which means it's just a feature and the headliner. So I have to go up to a cold audience. And I go up for twenty minutes, and I just eat it. And a guy, I, I, somebody in the audience makes a weird noise, and I go, oh, someone's dying out there. And this

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  guy goes, no, you're dying up there. And I just, I was like, when I left that show, I just was like, I don't know what I gotta do, but I gotta figure this out, because these are the gigs. So if I'm gonna do this, I gotta figure this out.

• 1:59:28Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59:29Speaker 02

  I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do it. And I don't know that I necessarily figured it out in that same scenario, but I think you do enough comedy to where you can recognize what the situation's gonna be, and you go, alright, I know how this is gonna be, so now I know how to handle it. Like, I just did a, a music festival in, in Florida. It was a country music festival. Alan Jackson's It's Five O'Clock Somewhere Fest. And I was excited about it, but when I, once I saw the stage and it was outdoor, I go, alright, I know what this is gonna be. This is not gonna be a captive audience, ready for me to just do setup punchline. I'm gonna try it.

• 2:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, you got that much insight.

• 2:00:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. I go, I know it's, this is what it's gonna be. So I-

• 2:00:14Shawn Ryan?

  But how do you adjust for that?

• 2:00:16Speaker 02

  Well, you just go out and you just say, I know they're not gonna be listening to me that much, and I know I'm not gonna get the reactions that I'm looking for. So, you know, you try a couple of jokes, and then you just try to do a little crowd work. You try to mess around. You just do some other fun things. Instead of just being like, I'm just gonna keep doing my setup punch, setup punch, until I sink myself into a hole and lose all confidence in my jokes. Because it's like, when you do a joke, you know, a hundred times, and it works, and then you go in front of an audience and do it, and it doesn't work, you go, okay, well, none of these jokes are gonna work. If this one

• 2:00:59Speaker 02

  didn't work, none of these are gonna work. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna sing half of John Mellencamp's Jack and Diane in front of the audience, and uh, and then make fun of this guy's hat. You know, that sort of stuff. Like, I like to go, you know, in a situ-, I was singing, and then I'd go, alright, everybody, you know, that, just that sort of thing, where you know they're not gonna join in, but you're just kinda like, alright. And then, you just kinda make fun of yourself, and you can look at people's faces out there and see them start to get into it. And then you try a joke, and uh, and that's what I did. I had twenty minutes, and I go, I can talk for twenty minutes.

• 2:01:37Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. So you're good at the pivot.

• 2:01:42Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:02:27Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:03:09Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:03:16Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:04:27Speaker 02

  It's all about, you know, the more experience you have, the more situations you put yourself in. Back in Charleston, I would ask my buddies and bands if I could open for them. And in the first time you do it, you go, oh, that's awful. I never want to do that again. But it makes you a little stronger. As long as you have good gigs in between, you can do bad gigs. And, and it makes you a little stronger. If you're only doing the bad gigs, I don't think that's making you stronger. I think that's ruining your confidence. Like I do corporates and I do.

• 2:05:06Shawn Ryan?

  What is a corporate?

• 2:05:07Speaker 02

  A corporate's like where a company hires me just to come in and do comedy for their, for their employees. And sometimes they're amazing. Like I did a Boot Barn, I did a corporate in Vegas for Boot Barn. It was amazing. But then, you know, I did a corporate for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. And it was, it was okay. I would say none of them are bad. But there are some that are like, it's okay. Because the difference is like if I, if I do a theater show, it's a thousand or more people that have bought tickets to see me do comedy. They like my jokes. They're there to see me.

• 2:05:48Speaker 02

  If it's the Department of Transportation, there likely is the Booker of that department is a huge fan of me. And then, you know, the rest of the employees. And you hope that there are some of them that are fans. And some of them are, but a lot of them are like, I'm at work. I don't want to be here. And I've just listened to people talk all day about different things. And even though this guy is funny, he's still just talking. And all I want to do is go back to my hotel. You know, and that's what some of them are. But I do some in Nashville here sometimes where it's like, it's super fun because they're in Nashville. They're partying and, and they're just excited to be here.

• 2:06:31Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, Ben. Right. Where do you find your inspiration from?

• 2:06:35Speaker 02

  I think it's just, you know, it's just being in the world. It's like just living a normal life and, you know, it's like, you know, going to the grocery store, having weird customer service interactions. And, and, you know, I try to not do family jokes because I feel like what happens. And it will happen to me inevitably probably, but I feel like what happens is a comic starts making jokes about their family. And then they, it's like they get locked into now this is either their fans start to come to expect it. And they're like, my fans love it because all my fans have families. And it, and it becomes your wheelhouse. Or you're just like, this is all I can think about now. So I'm trying to stay away from it as long as I can.

• 2:07:20Speaker 02

  And then I also don't want to make jokes about my kids. I feel like, you know, there, there is a couple of jokes I've made here and there about my kids, but I don't want to lock it into my set where I'm like, I don't want my kids to grow up and go, oh yeah, my dad was gone a lot of my childhood and just found out he's been making fun of me this whole time. That fun interaction me and him had that I thought was a secret, he told people on Netflix.

• 2:07:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:51Speaker 02

  You know?

• 2:07:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. How do you handle all the success?

• 2:07:56Speaker 02

  I feel like, you know, my, my success.

• 2:07:59Shawn Ryan?

  Fame, like all of that. How do you handle that stuff?

• 2:08:02Speaker 02

  The, what, what was the second part?

• 2:08:03Shawn Ryan?

  Fame, like I've been, that all the stuff you have going on.

• 2:08:07Speaker 02

  The interesting thing is I don't think of myself as famous, even though I get recognized a lot out here in the world. I feel like I've had this, and this is how I describe it to people. I grew up, you know, in a relatively small town and I, you know, I was, I was always a funny guy and I had a lot of parties. So I was pretty well known around town. So I could go around town and people would always say, hey to me. And then I moved to Charleston and I, I'm doing comedy there and I'm winning local competitions. And so I started to be well known in that town for doing comedy. And so I'm like, now I'm just, uh, uh, I'm that same guy, just on a larger level.

• 2:08:49Speaker 02

  So it feels good in the way that I, you know, I think if you're like, I don't know, maybe a super attractive dude or probably more an attractive woman, it's different for you. Uh, but for me, it's like, it's like people just want to be my friend. You know, they're just like, hey, we're having a good time and, you know, I'm going, all right. And it's like, it's just cool and normal.

• 2:09:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:11Speaker 02

  We're not, uh, people, you know, they want to have cigars with me and talk conspiracies. And, uh, and I think that's fun.

• 2:09:19Shawn Ryan?

  You're into conspiracies?

• 2:09:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I, I, I'm very entertained by conspiracies. I think it's really fun.

• 2:09:27Shawn Ryan?

  What's, you heard any good ones lately?

• 2:09:30Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, there's plenty of good ones. Uh, I mean, there's plenty of good ones, uh, you know? I mean, I, you know, I talk about moon landing stuff a lot and I, uh, you know, but you know.

• 2:09:42Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think we landed on the moon?

• 2:09:43Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I feel like you have, probably have a, a viewing audience that probably has a lot of people that is into the moon landing. So if I say I don't believe we landed on the moon, I feel like I'm really opening myself up. But I do have questions about it, you know? Uh, you know, it's just like, when you watch moon landing footage.

• 2:10:05Shawn Ryan?

  I did a poll once on X and it was like 90 something percent of the people thought we did not land on the moon.

• 2:10:11Speaker 02

  Oh, good. Because like I have some questions about it, right? Like the moon landing footage that we all see and accept, as the ship's coming down, like we're seeing it. Like who's that? Who's filming that? And then when it takes off, someone's filming, do we leave a guy up there? And then apparently didn't they call Richard Nixon from the moon on a landline?

• 2:10:37Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  I think there's a thing where he's like, they're like, hey, we're on the moon. And the, I think that's crazy. I mean, like how, you know, and I, I realize there's always an explanation.

• 2:10:48Shawn Ryan?

  And then the shadows line up.

• 2:10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:51Shawn Ryan?

  There's that.

• 2:10:52Speaker 02

  I mean, there are people whose life depends on defending that we landed on the moon. So I understand.

• 2:10:58Shawn Ryan?

  Into this, you've looked into it.

• 2:11:00Speaker 02

  As, as best I can.

• 2:11:02Shawn Ryan?

  Have you seen the Y Files episode on it?

• 2:11:04Speaker 02

  I don't, oh, I have seen the Y Files. Yeah.

• 2:11:08Shawn Ryan?

  It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

• 2:11:11Speaker 02

  And I'm just like.

• 2:11:12Shawn Ryan?

  It's really good.

• 2:11:13Speaker 02

  I just think there, that we should question everything. As a people, just in general, we should always be asking questions.

• 2:11:21Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know. People get so offended when you bring it up.

• 2:11:24Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:11:25Shawn Ryan?

  It's interesting.

• 2:11:26Speaker 02

  Well, I think for some people, it's, you know, it's a core childhood memory. You're like alive at the time when we landed on the moon and you're like, this is amazing. And then, you know, youngsters are coming along going, I don't think we did that. And you're like, this makes me mad. But I think, uh, we should question it.

• 2:11:46Shawn Ryan?

  Who do they think, who do they think did it, filmed it? Is it Stanley Kubrick?

• 2:11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. And I guess there's like footage of him like with, uh, all the moon landing people, all the people that landed on the moon.

• 2:12:00Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 2:12:01Speaker 02

  And I think there's like in the movie, The Shining, like the kid is wearing like a NASA sweater. And, uh, and does that mean anything by itself? Of course not. But I, you know, and then there's also the footage of the, the, you know, the astronauts that landed on the moon that they've contrast, contrasted with like the opening of the first Apple computer or the first iPhone or something. And it's like, when they show them with the first Apple computer, they're dancing around, they're all excited. And then the moon landing guy, the guy, the astronauts that landed on the moon look like they're at a funeral, basically. They, they're very sad looking.

• 2:12:41Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know about this one.

• 2:12:42Speaker 02

  And I, you know, I just, but if you see that press conference of them answering questions after landing on the moon, they, they, you know, they seem very sad. And if you're the first guys ever on the moon, you're not excited. You know, like let me, let me show you what I saw. And maybe they were just serious people. I don't know. I don't know. I, I don't know. I just, uh, I mean, it'd be, also would be one thing to me if like we landed on the moon and then they couldn't get off or, uh, you know, because you, you see the thing that we have, the whole, uh, system that we have for launching it.

• 2:13:24Speaker 02

  But then from the moon, we're like, oh, we got it. First try. We got it. We don't have the landing, we don't have the platform. You know?

• 2:13:33Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, Ben, yeah.

• 2:13:35Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there. I'm not calling, uh, them liars necessarily, but I'm like, I don't know. I just don't believe it. And, you know, who am I? I'm just a guy who's inhaled a lot of pesticides probably. But I, I, you know, I don't, I don't know. It looks crazy to me.

• 2:13:55Shawn Ryan?

  It does. It does. It does. I mean, we, we've talked about it several times on here. I think it's a fascinating subject. There was a space race going on between us and Russia. You know, there's, it's just, I, I haven't thought about it in quite a while. I used to know all the things, but yeah, it's, uh, I mean, just the fact that nobody's been, we haven't gone back.

• 2:14:17Speaker 02

  Right. Right. And like even now.

• 2:14:19Shawn Ryan?

  When did we land? Was it 68?

• 2:14:21Speaker 02

  I mean, there's a, yeah.

• 2:14:23Shawn Ryan?

  We haven't gone back and they say like, we haven't gone back because we lost the technology. Like you, you lost the techno, where?

• 2:14:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:34Shawn Ryan?

  Did you, like, did, what do you mean you lost it? Did your dog eat it? What does that mean?

• 2:14:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:14:39Shawn Ryan?

  You lost the technology?

• 2:14:40Speaker 02

  He says, I'd go back in a nanosecond, but we can't. We lost the technology.

• 2:14:45Shawn Ryan?

  Can't do it. We lost the technology. Haven't been able to find it since 1968.

• 2:14:51Speaker 02

  And what's the?

• 2:14:52Shawn Ryan?

  Then they were going to go back and they canceled the mission.

• 2:14:54Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:14:55Shawn Ryan?

  That was this year, right?

• 2:14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there's a one footage, you know, when Elon Musk launched the car into space, you know? He goes, he says, you know, it's real because it looks so fake. And I go, what?

• 2:15:12Speaker 02

  Well, that makes sense to people because they go, oh, our CGI is so good. And I go, nah, I don't know. Don't tell me it looks real because it looks fake.

• 2:15:24Speaker 02

  And, you know. Do you think we've been to space? I don't know. I mean, they always talk about this Van Allen radiation belt that they say we can't get through, that it's like, it's so hard. And I don't know, I just have a hard time with so much of that stuff where it's Do you think the world is round? Well, I, you know, I'm not allowed to talk. My wife says I'm not allowed to talk about these things, but but

• 2:15:50Speaker 02

  I just don't understand a lot of things and people try, they explain it, but when they explain it, they're always mad at me when they're explaining it. But I just, I just always think about the oceans, right? I think about how, you know, if it's a ball, there's water down here. And then, uh, you know, how's that held into place? It's not just pouring off and it, the explanation is gravity and I understand that, but I just don't understand how it, it's, it's holding it in so tight, but the fish swim freely, the feather floats,

• 2:16:29Speaker 02

  the butterflies flutter around and it just, it seems relatively selective. Gravity does where it's like, you know, this stays, but I have no problem lifting it. It's not hard. I'm not, I'm not straining to lift my arms. And I just have questions and I just, uh, I think it's okay to question, but people are very upset about it. They do. They get up, they get And they call me stupid and that how could I be so stupid? And I go, hey, guys, I'm not telling you how it is. I'm just asking. That's all. And they just think that their answer should always satisfy me. And I go, I'm sorry, it just doesn't. The day that we can recreate a ball

• 2:17:15Speaker 02

  that I just see the water stay on is the day I'll go, all right, you got me. And I just, the, the thing about it is, is, is CGI to Elon Musk point, CGI is too good to where now I'll have a hard time believing any footage. Because I go, I don't know. I ju, I wanna, I wanna see the video of the camera on the shuttle that launches and then I see it and then we go out of the earth and then there's the earth and then we go away from, I mean, that's what I wanna say. And then as we leave earth, it's whipping around and gone. And I, I don't know, it just never seems like that's what we're seeing. Does this line up with any scripture or anything you've read? Well, I mean,

• 2:18:00Speaker 02

  Just curious. I mean, Genesis one really, you know, really describes, you know, the way the earth looks, you know, uh, that there's a, a, you know, a firmament, uh, where that it separates the waters from the wa, for the waters below, from the waters above and and, you know, the sun and the moon and the stars are inside the firmament and that's what it says. And again, I'm like, if I believe the Bible, I, I should believe the creation account. You know, and then, uh,

• 2:18:34Speaker 02

  and then, you know, it's like when the flood happens, it says the, the waters of, uh, the gates of the heavens opened up and, and water came from above. Um, you know, and it wasn't just rain, the water came from below, water came from above to flood the earth. Uh, and I just go, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, well, everything I'm being told is real. But, you know, there's a, I don't know, I just, uh, I think maybe it's not. I mean, that, you know, they use a verse in Isaiah where they say the circle of the earth. But a circle is not a ball.

• 2:19:12Speaker 02

  You know, a circle, I mean, I could draw a circle and that's not a ball. I mean, this bottle cap from this view is a circle, you know, it's not a so I don't know. And, you know, So what do you think that means though?

• 2:19:27Speaker 02

  Well, if you're, if you're in heaven, if you're above and you're looking down, I mean, it could just be a, a, a circle. And I don't think it means that even that it would be floating in space. It's just, um, uh, it's just, you know, it's, it's like on the, you know, it's like, who knows what, what, what actually it's we're dealing with. But it could just be like, you know, it's like this, and then we have a circle that's on, and that's where we live, but this is, you know, landmass and maybe there is no bottom, you know, and never the, the, the depths never end. What's on the outside of the circle? I don't know. I mean, the Bible often talks about a, a, an outer darkness

• 2:20:12Speaker 02

  where it describes a wailing and gnashing of teeth where it's like, it's like, and God is light. So the darkness is the absence of God. So that's what, you know, I don't know, I think hell would be like, would be the, that God is no longer around. God is our light. God is what's good and everything the opposite of God is darkness and bad. And without God, it's, it's just the outer darkness where it's, you know, there is no protection from God. What do you think the edges are? Of the earth? Well, the only, the, you know, a lot of people say that, uh, you know, and these are all things people say, I have no idea.

• 2:20:56Speaker 02

  But they would say that it would be in, you know, an ice wall, right? It would be, uh, because you know, the pattern of the sun would move more like a clock as opposed to us moving around the sun. The sun would be local and would be moving like a clock around us. So that's why the center is cold and the outside is cold because the sun spends less time there and in more time, kind of in the middle, like the, you would have the uh, tropic of Capricorn, I think is first, then the equator, and then the tropic of Cancer. So it would move along those lines like a clock. But it spins, you know, so when it's

• 2:21:38Speaker 02

  this, I'm gonna be, uh, my wife is gonna be mad at me about this, but when, when, when this, and this is all hypothetical, that's right? I'm not saying I believe it. This is what I've looked at. That the sun, if it's on the equator, it's now like, let's say it's um, fall on the tropic of Cancer and then spring on the tropic of Capricorn. So then it moves on to that. And then that's why the hottest parts of the world, it's never really winter time. It's always warm because the sun is never two lines away from them. This is better demonstrated if you can visually see it. But where, you know, you actually have winter and one place, and then it would, it, it would explain why

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  say in Alaska, you have these times of where there's always sunlight because, you know, that would be, I guess it'd be summer where the sun is just, you know, moving around a small circle. And it's for us, it would be fall or, or, or spring and depending on if it's coming or going. And then, and then when it's on the outer line, it would be days of complete darkness. Wow. And I, you know, I'm no scientist, but I, you know, I'm just a guy who has spent, uh, I have, I used to have lots of free time. I used to be unmarried, on the road, in hotels, watching videos, listening to podcasts.

• 2:23:08Speaker 02

  Well then, what do you think about aliens? Curious about that. I do, I think aliens are likely spiritual beings. That's what I think. And, you know, probably not coming from

• 2:23:24Speaker 02

  um, space, but coming from another realm. That's what I think. Yeah.

• 2:23:31Speaker 02

  And that, you know, the Bible, it talks about anytime people encounter angels, even good angels coming to help. They're scared of them and they bow before them because they're afraid of them. And some of them in Ezekiel, some of the heavenly beings that are described would be pretty scary for us to say.

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• 2:25:22Speaker 02

  But then aliens, I mean, maybe they're, you know, fallen angels. And some people think ghosts are, say, the, uh, like, you know, then you get into the Nephilim where you have the fallen angels who have mated with the human women, as it talks about in Genesis 6. So they're not necessarily God-created. So when they die, their soul has nowhere to go. So they wander the earth.

• 2:25:48Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. If you, do you have any, uh, do you have any ghosts, encounters, paranormal? Have you ever run into any of that?

• 2:25:54Speaker 02

  Well, I've had some kind of like sleep paralysis dreams a couple of times where I feel like I can't move and I, oh, you know, and I've, I've heard that when, if people are abducted by aliens, and this is, you know, an account that many people have talked about. They say if they're abducted by aliens and they say Jesus, uh, the encounter is over. So every time I have this kind of sleep paralysis dream, which I've had several times, I, I feel like I can't move and I feel like I'm trying to say things. And then I'm always trying to say Jesus because even in that dream, I know that if I say that, it ends. And I, when I finally get it out, it doesn't. And I, but I've had, the weirdest thing that I had,

• 2:26:39Speaker 02

  I lived in an old house. This was the house I was living in when I started comedy in Nashville. It was built in the 1800s. And, um, my, um, I was, I was, I was in a downstairs room by this point. My wife had moved in. We were still dating, but we were in bed together. And these doors, the rooms were real echoey and all the doors would kind of make a clicking sound when you opened it. And I was in bed and I kind of heard the clicking sound. And in my mind, I was totally chill. I was like, oh, my roommates come to tell me something. But my roommates never would come into my room at night and tell me something. But I look up and there's like a shadowy figure at the foot of the bed.

• 2:27:23Speaker 02

  And I kind of like move back and then it's gone. And it's over. And it was terrifying. But I, I almost, in such a weird kind of dream state, just dismiss it and then think about it later. Now, I told, I told that on the Blurry Creatures podcast. And my, uh, my old roommate says his girlfriend had a couple of weird experiences in the house like that, where she thought she saw a shadowy figure in the living room. And, and so much so that she thought it was a person that she asked if they needed help. Weird stuff.

• 2:28:01Shawn Ryan?

  She asked if it needed help?

• 2:28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I forget exactly what it was, but she almost described it.

• 2:28:06Shawn Ryan?

  You were on the Blurry Creatures pod? They're local, they're around here too, aren't they?

• 2:28:10Speaker 02

  They're around here, yeah. And it was, you know, after that, he said, he texts me and he goes, was that at, we call it the, well, the annex house. It was over in West Nashville, Annex Court. And it was big, big old white house. And that was the only thing I ever had in there. But he said that happened a couple of times with her.

• 2:28:33Shawn Ryan?

  I've had shit happen.

• 2:28:35Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 2:28:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. It's, we had this one thing. I've told it on here a couple of times. But, um, in College Grove, there's a, like, an old Civil War-era cabin. But it's actually been moved there. You know, you know how they'll like deconstruct these and people will buy them and then you reconstruct them?

• 2:28:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:57Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, so me and my wife stayed there a couple of times. We used to, actually, the first time we stayed here, there, we were looking for, we, we, we came up here from Florida and we looked like, I don't know, we spent like a year looking for a place. We couldn't afford anything. And, uh, and, um, we, we came up like eight different trips and just kept getting outbid by people from California.

• 2:29:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:29:24Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, I had given up. I was like, it's not gonna happen. It's like, let's just go, let's just go get a cabin in the woods and enjoy it. And then we'll just figure out a different place in Florida to move or something. And we stayed in, so we rented this old cabin out in the woods, Civil War cabin. And, uh, and I woke up, I, I heard this thing banging on the walls. It like 2:00 in the morning or whatever time it was. And I was like, I woke up and I'm like, woke my wife up and she's like, ah, it's probably just an animal. I'm like, that, it's probably a squirrel or a raccoon. I'm like, squirrels don't do that on the side of the wall.

• 2:30:07Shawn Ryan?

  And then, uh, we did like this survival series once and, uh, we used it as, uh, kind of like a set or, you know, to film in. And it was me, a guy that films for us, Tim, and, um, there, there was a bunch of us. My COO was out there. My old marketer was out there. My wife was out there. Uh, and then this guy, Adam, that used to do IT stuff for us. And we went, so I had him do this survival challenge where they had like, I can't remember, 30 minutes and a budget to go into Bass Pro and pick whatever they, whatever they could find to survive for the end of the world, you know?

• 2:30:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:30:49Shawn Ryan?

  And then we went back to the cabin to grade it all. And we had, we started having all these electrical problems. And in the middle of the debrief on the camera, you could hear, it sounded like cowboy boots upstairs. There was a loft, like a spiral staircase loft, but you could look down, you know what I mean? It wasn't a separate room, it was a loft. And we had just heard these cow, like cowboy boots, footsteps going across the floor. And you can see me in the video. I, I look up and I'm like, look like I just saw a ghost. And everybody, and then the two guys I was grading also look up and like, look at me at the exact same moment. And so we immediately, I was like, we gotta get out of here.

• 2:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, and, uh, we pulled the footage and you can hear static in the, in the audio instead of the footsteps. And, uh, I called my best friend to tell him about it because you can't tell that many people but they think you're correct. Now I don't care. But, um, they pulled the, they, uh, he's like, pull up the, uh, just, he's like, I'm just curious. Pull up the Airbnb reviews. And sure as shit, like 30% of the reviews are like, don't bang on the walls, they bang back, don't show up after dark. Like, it was, it was, it was like, oh, shit. So I'm not the only one that dealt with this. We did another one.

• 2:32:16Speaker 02

  See, that stuff's scary, though.

• 2:32:18Shawn Ryan?

  Dude, right? We did another one. We were, when we were moving out here, we went and we looked at this farm. It was like 30 something acres out in College Grove. And, uh, old farmhouse, like, I can't, whatever, 1800s, something like that, like, original but redone. And, um, and I'm looking at the, and I had not had, I don't think I've had any encounters before this. So this was what, like, I don't know, close to 10 years ago. And we're looking, I'm looking at the, the photos on the, on Realtor.com or whatever it was. And I see this cemetery. I guess it's like normal here to have cemetery on your, on your land. And I look at my wife and I'm like,

• 2:33:04Shawn Ryan?

  why are we even going to look at this place? There's a cemetery on it. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to, no. I don't want to do this.

• 2:33:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:10Shawn Ryan?

  And she's like, oh, it's probably at the back of the 30 acres or whatever. And I'm like, I don't care where it is. I don't want to deal with the cemetery. And, uh, she's like, well, she's like, we don't need to worry about it. You know, if, if there is anything, they communicate through electricity. Like, it's not a big deal. And I'm like, it is a big deal. And, um, and we get, I'm like, whatever, we'll go look at it. We're already on the way. Beautiful property, like, amazing. And, um, just like beautiful land, rolling hills, creek running through it. House was like, just really cool. And, um,

• 2:33:51Speaker 02

  Like the beginning of a horror movie type stuff.

• 2:33:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And we get in, so I go and look at the kitchen and there's a window, you know, over the kitchen sink where you can like, look at the creek and the rolling hills. And I look out there and I'm like, well, there's the cemetery. Like, there's the creek, then there's the cemetery. There's this old dilapidated building right next to the cemetery. Like, like a hut, kind of, like, not a hut, but it's a ruin.

• 2:34:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:18Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm like,

• 2:34:21Shawn Ryan?

  Telling the realtor, I'm like, is, is that the cemetery? And she's like, yeah. And I'm like, what is that? And she goes, oh, that's the old slave quarters. I was like, oh, in old slave quarters, right next to a cemetery where they probably buried them. Nothing evil happened on this property, I'm sure. And right then, the damn lights in the kitchen start flickering on and off and all this shit. And she's like, oh yeah, she's like, something's going on with the electricity, but we have the electrician out. Nobody can seem to figure it out. I just looked at my wife, I'm like, you know.

• 2:34:55Speaker 02

  And your wife had said they communicate.

• 2:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, like, like five minutes, like as we're pulling through, as we're like going up the driveway to this place. I'm like, no, but this isn't.

• 2:35:05Speaker 02

  What did she say? Did she?

• 2:35:07Shawn Ryan?

  She just, she's, she looked at me and she knew exactly, she's like,

• 2:35:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:35:11Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, maybe this was a bad idea.

• 2:35:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, because, but yeah, because if you love it and even she's into it, it's like, and then you're gone. And now, you know, stuff's going on. Yeah, I mean, I.

• 2:35:23Shawn Ryan?

  I can't do it. No way.

• 2:35:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:35:25Shawn Ryan?

  I don't do it. If you can't kill it, don't mess with it.

• 2:35:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, I, yeah, I mean, I, I used to, I mean, I watched a lot of Unsolved Mysteries as a kid. I mean, I was really into it, but I don't watch horror movies or stuff like that because I do my best to block this stuff out of my brain.

• 2:35:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, me too.

• 2:35:41Speaker 02

  Because I don't need any of that in there because it just, I feel like somehow, I don't know, I feel like you, if you go to like haunted houses or you watch those movies, you're almost inviting that stuff in and I can't be inviting it in.

• 2:35:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:56Speaker 02

  I'm not built for it.

• 2:35:57Shawn Ryan?

  I'm with you. I don't, I don't watch any of that stuff.

• 2:36:00Speaker 02

  Cause I believe that it's real. I think a lot of people can do it because they don't believe it's real. They're like, this is just entertainment.

• 2:36:06Shawn Ryan?

  I know it's real.

• 2:36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:36:08Shawn Ryan?

  Now so many things have happened to me that I, I, it's, I know for a fact it's all real.

• 2:36:15Speaker 02

  I mean, I've heard people in South Carol, tell me that in Charleston, you know, being such an old city, they've, there's stories of like these Civil War houses where they, they would see a guy dressed in like a Civil War uniform. They, they were like at an old, I guess they were working at an old Civil War hospital or something. I don't know, but they saw a guy. It seemed like he was dressed in a Civil War uniform, just really creepy stuff.

• 2:36:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:39Speaker 02

  My dad has a house where

• 2:36:43Speaker 02

  that over the years, he's, he's, uh, he's bought a couple of houses near him. He lives way out in the country and one of the houses, when he bought it, they had it, the closet had, you would open the closet and it has stairwell in the closet going up to the attic. And you, you, there was no access to it except through the closet.

• 2:37:02Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 2:37:03Speaker 02

  And he said that, uh, the story was way back, this family had a, a kid with Down syndrome and they were like, it was like back at that time, it was like a shame, you know? So they kept the kid in the attic. And like, my dad rented the house to people after that and he, he redid it to where the attic was now rooms and he had a stairwell coming down. But people would have all kind of accounts. This one girl said she was sitting on the bed and there was like an imprint that another person was sitting next to her. And she said she brushed it away and it came back. Now, all these people, who knows if it's true, but they said that the faucets would drip, the ceiling fans would turn on out of nowhere.

• 2:37:47Speaker 02

  That they would never do anything to anyone, but you were always just hearing and seeing things. Very crazy stuff.

• 2:37:54Shawn Ryan?

  I think, I mean, there's a ton of that stuff around here because, you know, frontline Civil War.

• 2:37:59Speaker 02

  And they, and a lot of people say that it's not, like, it wouldn't be the ghost of that child. But it's that, that that house being that it was probably that child went through pain and torment that demons and stuff like to gather where torment and pain has happened.

• 2:38:17Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, which I was just gonna ask you if you, if what, you know, we were talking about the Nephilim and fallen angels. I was just gonna ask you what you thought it was.

• 2:38:26Speaker 02

  Cause I'm like, I don't mess with Ouija boards. I'm not into any, like even for fun, like I don't do any of that for fun. No.

• 2:38:36Shawn Ryan?

  Me neither. No way. Never have.

• 2:38:39Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:38:39Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh,

• 2:38:42Shawn Ryan?

  yeah, you, I did a couple of the Civil War tours and I did one, uh, south of here. And they, it was like some house that got turned into a hospital. And I mean, I'm, I'm a veteran and I've seen a lot of shit and, uh, and, uh, we get up in the ceiling and they're like, oh yeah, here's all the bloodstain, the original bloodstains of the soldiers that died. And I'm like,

• 2:39:12Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just thinking like, the original, like, how weird is this? Like I've been to war, I've seen people bleed to death and I have friends that have died and like to turn it into a tour. So yeah, here's where all my friends, uh, died and bled to death. You can see their bloodstains on the floor. I'm like, what the hell is going on here?

• 2:39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:30Shawn Ryan?

  But, but, uh,

• 2:39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:33Shawn Ryan?

  Anyways, that was a good tangent.

• 2:39:36Speaker 02

  Well, though, you know, that kind of stuff said, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I recently found out that like, like my, my dad was born in 1947, but he was the youngest of, of his siblings and his dad was born in 1900. And that, uh, my dad was drafted for Vietnam, but had, he had a heart murmur and so he was denied because of his physical. And then his brother, his oldest brother was in World War Two. Which I just think it's crazy that brothers, one was being World War Two and one would get drafted for Vietnam. But my uncle was said he, well, I never talked to him. He died in, he was born in 26, but he died at 56. Fifty, something like that, 58. And, uh,

• 2:40:21Speaker 02

  I met him as a child, but he, uh,

• 2:40:25Speaker 02

  said he was in a, a, you know, he had a purple heart. He said he was in, in combat and it's just like, it's, uh, I don't know, it's wild to think, my other uncles were in the air force, but my, my grandfather was too young for World War One, too old for World War Two. So they like, something like that. And so my direct line, and then even I got arrested before getting into the army. We've somehow all avoided military, but all my other, my uncles and my, were all in the military.

• 2:40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 2:40:56Speaker 02

  I don't really know the point of that, but I, I just, my, my, my cousin sent me, she found my, uh, my aunt's Bible. My aunt was, you know, in her nineties when she passed away and had all these names and dates written down. And then I, I did, uh, a few air force shows and I went, I ended up doing a show at the air force base that one of my uncles was based at, which is, uh,

• 2:41:20Speaker 02

  in, in Wichita. Now I can't think of the base, but in Wichita, Kansas. And I've done a few shows at air force bases.

• 2:41:26Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool.

• 2:41:27Speaker 02

  And, uh, I like, I like doing that, all in the States. But it's fun, you know, you go on the bases and all these guys that are, you know, they, you know, I'm sure they can get on and off, but maybe they don't have a lot of time for shows and stuff like that. Can come and see a show for free and

• 2:41:41Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 2:41:41Speaker 02

  I think those are fun.

• 2:41:43Shawn Ryan?

  What's the next tour for you? Or you want?

• 2:41:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do.

• 2:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Going on again?

• 2:41:47Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm all, you know, this, you know, depending on when this comes out of me, but I'm, you know, as, as we're sitting here, I'm, um, in two days, I'm going to, uh, Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a corporate gig. And then I'm off to basically Chicago for a casino gig. And then I'm doing another casino gig in the upper peninsula of Michigan. And the rest of the year is all my theater dates, which I'm calling the neighborhood guy tour because I'm, you know, I lived in a neighborhood and I wrote a few jokes about it. I hate coming up with a tour name because I'm basically, I'm like, I'm just doing shows. But in order to package it and, and you know, and we, we need a poster and we need a name. So, you know, but I got a few jokes about living in the neighborhood and

• 2:42:30Speaker 02

  but all my jokes are just everyday stuff. It's basically like, you know, deep down, I'm sort of a weird guy. I guess my mind works in a weird way. So I have an everyday scenario that then I turn into some sort of a tangent that takes a, takes a different road, you know?

• 2:42:48Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 2:42:49Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, I got, um, I always liked breaking down country songs. Now I'm working on the Garth Brooks song, That Summer. Uh, I think that's fun to talk about, uh, you know, we don't really know how old they were. He says, uh, he says he was a teenager and she was a lonely widowed woman, but we don't know. A teenager is 13 to 19, so who knows? And she could be any age, you know? Like I say, you know, I say this song's in the nineties. I say, if she's, if he's 17 and she's 40, that's pretty cool, right? This was the nineties. But if he's 15 and she's 80, this is a different song. And we don't know.

• 2:43:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 2:43:36Speaker 02

  And I think that's fun. I love, because I'm like, I love this song. It's a good song, like, just like all the songs. You know, Five O'Clock Somewhere, I did a full breakdown on that and that, that song's great. I love it. Uh, you know, I did, uh, the latest special I did, uh, on Wet Heat, I did Garth Brooks, uh, Hard Working Man song. Also, a song came out in the nineties. I had the album. And I did, and that, that joke did very well for me on its own. And I got to meet Brooks and Dunn and talk to them and, uh, for me, it's like, that's what's so crazy about it. Like, I'm, uh, you know, it's like, I'm now meeting all these country singers from the nineties that I was huge fans of.

• 2:44:19Speaker 02

  Because I'm like making fun, making fun of their songs essentially, and they love it.

• 2:44:24Shawn Ryan?

  How about that? Sooner they get a kick out of those bits.

• 2:44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm like, I, I remember singing Brooks and Dunn songs when I was a little kid. They had that song, uh, their first song was, um, uh, Brand New Man. And, you know, it's basically about a guy who's, you know, been running around with women and now he's met this woman and he wants to change his life for her. And I'm like, listening to this at ten years old, like, I'm ready to turn my life around too. I'm ready to settle down with a woman, you know? Cause this song's so good. You know, but, uh, I don't know, it's fun. I mean, that's what's great about Nashville is like, I'm doing, I'm doing the Opry. I've gotten to do the Opry over forty times.

• 2:45:05Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I love country music, but I can't sing. I can't play music. Who would have ever thought I'd be doing the Opry? Now, you know, I'm kind of, you know, kind of friends with some of these guys, you know, I'm, we're not, you know, Trace Adkins, I've gotten to hang out with him on a tour bus for a while and we were supposed to do a, a state fair together, but it was storming. So we were just sitting on his bus, waiting to see if the storm would let off for long enough. And, uh, you know, I'm listening to Trace Adkins stories, which I think is great. And Jamie Johnson has sort of become a buddy and he was at a, a show of mine and recently, and we hung out and Tracy Lawrence came to my show and I'm like, this is, it's just all unbelievable to me.

• 2:45:48Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool, man.

• 2:45:49Speaker 02

  You know?

• 2:45:50Shawn Ryan?

  That is cool. How about the book?

• 2:45:54Speaker 02

  Well, the book, uh, I, I like, right? I, uh, you know, it wasn't my idea to write a book. I'm not the kind of guy that's going, people need to hear my life. But I got an offer to write a book, uh, from Simon and Schuster, which is a, a big publisher. And I was like, oh, this is great. And then I wrote the book. I wrote the whole book and then they, they read it and they go, all right, let's get a ghostwriter in here. And, uh, but I just think what they wanted to do was they want, they, to me, I was a little offended, but to me, they like, basically, they want the book to be written in a way that they're used to their readers reading, I guess.

• 2:46:35Speaker 02

  Um, I don't know. Uh, so, uh, so I wrote it and then a ghostwriter came in and we started working together. And I really liked him. I really liked this guy and I think he did a really good job. So I wanted to include his name on the cover. So we've done that. Uh, and, uh, and also I wanted them to know, uh, you know, if there's a joke you don't like, I'll blame it on him. And, uh, uh, no, he's great. And, and I think the book is really good. I think he did a good job of taking my stories and, and writing them in a, you know, I'm a bit of a rambler. And I think he wrote them in a way that really, really works well.

• 2:47:13Speaker 02

  And I like what he did. I like what we did. And I think, you know, I got a few, I got a few secrets in there that I think are fun. It'll be a fun reveal. Um, and the, uh, uh, I don't know. I think the book's gonna be cool. It's cool to have a book. And now I'll be a published author. So maybe after that, you know, I'll write some books.

• 2:47:33Shawn Ryan?

  Did you enjoy the experience?

• 2:47:35Speaker 02

  I, uh, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't enjoy it, uh, the way that I thought I would enjoy it because I like comedy because I get to do comedy exactly my way. I write a joke. I go try it. If it doesn't work, I adjust it until it does. And then, uh, and then I do it the way I want. With a book, you know, there's other people involved. And I, you know, it's, it's not a slight on them because they're doing their job. Their job is to make sure this book is the best that it can be when it goes out. And, uh, you know, I'm looser. I'm looser about things.

• 2:48:17Speaker 02

  But I, I, I am glad that I did it. I'm thankful for them for, for offering this to me and I'm glad we did it. But they worked me to death. And I'm, I, I always tell people, my, my comedy friends that I have that are on the road constantly, I go, what are you doing? Like, we didn't, did you get into comedy to work this hard? It's like, yeah, you gotta work to get there, but once you get there, now enjoy it. They're working non-stop. I go, we're comedians. What are you doing?

• 2:48:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:54Speaker 02

  And I mean, maybe I'm lazy, but I'm like, I, I used to work, you know, when I sold pesticides, sometimes I was working fifty, sixty hours a week. I was a salaried employee. The money never went up no matter what. And I was like, well, if I can get out of this. I used to have a joke. And this joke was, a friend of mine asked me one time, he goes, if you, for a million dollars, would you eat a piece of poop the size of a fun-sized Snickers bar, right? And the joke was, yeah, of course I would. I don't want to do, the joke's on making that fudge if you want to hear. But it was because I hated my job. Uh, and then, once I started doing comedy, even when I was making a little bit of money, I was like, no way.

• 2:49:38Speaker 02

  No way would I do it. But it was because I like my life. It's not about the money. It's about finding a life that you enjoy, you know? And it's like, that joke is, it's a timeless question. Would you eat this for a million dollars? Would you do this for a million dollars? And the answer, almost my whole life was yes. But now, but even, you know, now I've made some money and I'm like, well, of cour-, they're like, of course you'd say no now. But no, I mean, when I was, had three hundred thousand miles on a car with no air conditioner, driving across the country, I'm still saying no because I like this.

• 2:50:20Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think you're lazy. I think you're smart, you know?

• 2:50:23Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:50:23Shawn Ryan?

  It takes a lot, it's, it's a lot to, there's a lot of offers out there, you know, especially for somebody like you to be able to, to be able to say no and turn some of them down. I mean, to be with your family and enjoy life. I think that's, it's really cool.

• 2:50:40Speaker 02

  Well, thank you. I mean, I love my family. I think, I mean, hanging out with, you know, it's like, if you're hanging out with your kids a lot, I mean, I think, I, you know, obviously you're like, you can get irritated with your kids, all these sorts of things, but it's like, it's a joy to be with them.

• 2:50:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:59Speaker 02

  I mean, I got three kids. Sometimes I'm sitting in my chair in the morning and they're all three sitting with me and I go, this is awesome. And my son's, you know, my son's three and my five-month-old is, uh, a boy. And it's like, you know, he's beating him up and I go, why are you doing that to the baby? But he's just, he's just playing with his brother. He's like, ready to play. He's like, stop being a baby and play with me.

• 2:51:20Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 2:51:21Speaker 02

  He's ready to rough him up out here. And I go, he's still a baby right now, okay? It's not smothering with the pillow right now. But my daughter, who's five, is she's, I mean, she's ready to be a mom to the baby already. She's, she's so sweet to him. I mean, kids are the best.

• 2:51:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. I love them. I love them. But, well, Dusty, this is awesome.

• 2:51:48Speaker 02

  Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

• 2:51:50Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for coming. And, uh, yeah, I, I would, uh, I'd love to have you on again sometime.

• 2:51:56Speaker 02

  I'd love to do it. I mean, this is great. I mean, this is, you know, like I said to you, uh, off air, I mean, it's an honor to be in this room with this, all this memorabilia that you have in here with people that have done incredible things. And so I'm just excited to be here. I appreciate you.

• 2:52:10Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Thank you. God bless.

• 2:52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:13Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 2:52:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:26Shawn Ryan?

  No matter where you're watching The Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.

• 2:52:49Speaker 01

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.