#671 - Casey Rocket

Casey Rocket is a stand up comedian and writer. You can see him live on his “Return of the Prodigal Riff” tour happening now through the end of the year. Casey joins Theo to talk about his mysterious southern origins, why he left Austin for Chicago, and the perils of riffing too close to the sun. Casey Rocket: https://www.instagram.com/caseyrocket ------------------------------------------------- Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Shopify: Take control of your income. Start your free trial at http://shopify.com/theo Mountain Dew: Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you at http://mountaindew.com Better Help: This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at http://BetterHelp.com/theo Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on our episodes. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Mail stuff to: ATTN: TPW PO BOX 40137 Nashville TN 37204 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend X: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/ Producer: Halston https://www.instagram.com/halstonrays/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one year old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still add. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Today's guest is a stand up comedian. His, uh, his origins are mysterious. Yes. But you'll know him from his wildly popular Kill Tony appearances. Uh, he's on the road now. You can see him live. Um, there's no one like him. There's no one like him. Uh, I had a great time with today's guest, the Sultan of Riff. Mr. Casey Rocket.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Sometimes I can't tell if I'm having like male hot flashes or whatever.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Sure. Men of a certain age, every age.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Every age, maybe.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Men of a certain age being the spectrum of all ages. Yeah.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Dude, I think these days, things have gotten crazy. You'll see a little kid having a hot flash or whatever. He'll be like, you know, you'll see a little kid just like go like just looking for like a

• 1:35Speaker 02

  A faucet.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  People are like, people are trying to do anything they can.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  To cool these kids off.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. To help, to help themselves.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah. Spick it.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  You'll see people doing like the, the level we've gotten to in a society of trying to help ourselves is crazy. It's like, people are playing like a lot of like certain hertz of sounds that are supposed to like, you know, help you pass old, uh, trauma or help you, uh, you know, uh, win the lottery. Like there's a lot, like, there's a lot of mega hertz that's variable for different options, you know?

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of sounds that can help you win the lottery. Um, I'm the first to admit that. Yeah. So certain like total, certain, certain like tonal shifts. So if you go like low, like you'll win, what is it? Like 10 to 20 grand.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  So, but the higher ones, they get dangerous for your like, what do they call it? Like, um, terminal mental velocity. Yeah.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, when people win too much money, it induces a lot. I think it's called high dollar trauma or something, HDT. And you, you will see people with that, like rich people or whatever. And they're suddenly eating like rare cheeses, cheeses made from, you know, obviously the, you know, cultivated or pasteurizing the tears of the poor and young.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, what did they say? It's like old money at the poverty line. So it's like LA, LA by way of New York. So the lower the cheese is on like a vibrational frequency, the higher the dollar amount you don't have to pay. It's like a tax write off. Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, definitely. If you get, cause there's somebody running around with a 425 megahertz queso dip right now. I know there's a truck that just stalled out on the way to the Hamptons. It was full of it and, uh,

• 3:20Speaker 02

  The engine just could not function like that.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, well, when you're pushing that much high dollar dairy and you're pulling it behind you and you have a fucking, probably a seventh or eighth grade reading level driver, you know?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  The, the polarity there is just not healthy. And it's like, where does the buck stop? The buck stops, the buck stops when the truck stops, as they say.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. God, if queso made us fricking smarter, God, can you even imagine?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Can you imagine the mental bandwidth I would have right now? Cause I had to get all queso breakfast.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. So frozen, solid, liquid. Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  So you get like, um, what is it? Like a fudge pop of like frozen queso fresco. And then you go like, okay, you go chili con carne.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Um, pure liquids, you leave that on the dashboard. And then you go with the gas, which is, um, just like a handful of like rits.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  And those are so good. And what I've also heard is that they have those new queso whipits or whatever, like a whip it, like pimento cheese whipits and you fucking.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Galaxy gas. Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. You hit a couple of those, brother.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Ooh, I got a stomach ache.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Oh, you'll get sick. Yeah. You'll have to shit.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  You'll have to poop. Yeah. It's bad for your appendix. Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Oh, you're, these days that your appendix will burst or a rich person will hire you to burst your appendix. So they don't have to.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah. They'll tether you up. That's what happened to Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses. He accidentally tethered to himself.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. We've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone. God, dude.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Too much of a good thing.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Too much dashboard queso.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yum.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  That's our band name.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Um, like the string cheese incident.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Oh God, dude. I used to follow widespread some. Did you?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Really?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I think I know, well, not widespread, but I know someone in the Testigie Trucks Band.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Dwayne.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Johnson?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Allman. Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Dwayne Allman.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I've always wondered his last name. That was a nut. Bring him up. Dwayne Allman.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Peter Pistagio.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Or a P or like Ronnie Garbondo or whatever, like a bean, maybe?

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wait, is Dwayne Allman dead? Oh no, he died in 1971. Who have, who have I been talking to?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Oh dude, it's probably one of those Nigerian scammers.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  He's like, hey, I want to teach you steel guitar. And I'm like, great. That's, that sounds great.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Melissa.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Melissa. What's the catch? I'm going to teach you how to play Southbound. All right.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Casey Rocket. Good to see you, man.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Good to see you.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me here.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Thanks for talking queso.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude. It's almost, well, I misread your name earlier. And that's what even had me thinking about it. I thought it was queso rocket.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah. Queso object permanence rocket.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  There should be, um, like a Latino version of you that comes out named Queso Rocket.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  And I go, this person's an imposter.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  And he's like, no, I'm not.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Huh? He's all liquid. So sick.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  God, I hope we're okay.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Me too. A riff like that will make you start questioning like your, your purpose in the world.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Things get rough, dude. Well, I was, it, it reminded me, it took me to a place when I went to see, um, I went and we watched, it was at a music festival one weekend. It was in New Orleans. It's called a Jazz and Heritage Festival. It's every year. And it's, uh, they had, who was playing? The guy, uh, shit, some guy that was going to die soon.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  And was that, so was that the general consensus or the, you like retroactively, you were like, he was about to die?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  He would have like, he was out there, but his kid was singing with him kinda, you know? Like when they get the kids out there and he's sitting over there and somebody just kinda spraying water on him. Almost like he's like a, like a, like one of those Indian plants or whatever that help.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  David Allen Coe. That happened with Ozzy too. They like hooked him up to a life support machine. I was there. I was in Birmingham. I saw Ozzy's last concert.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Were you really?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  And did they, like, was he on an IV and stuff while he was up there?

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, he was in like a UV light.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. They had him in like, it was like a makeshift, like final destination tanning machine. So it was like, but it was like pointed outward. So he didn't have to be laying down. But see, so that is a tanning bed. You can see, you can see the, the blue. Yeah. It helped him like, he had like photosynthesis. It made him like effervescent.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the darkest tanning bed you can get. They're like, how dark do you want to go? It's like, we offer like, uh, you know, uh, Pensacola, Alabama, Tri Delta, Pensacola Beach. Or we also can go all the way. We can do Ozzy's last show dark.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  We could do South Padre Island or you in a casket. So that they're actually pointing an EMP at him. That's a sound weapon. So, um, he has Havana syndrome.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, dude. And he's just singing that song. Uh, San Juan. Mi hijo. Have you seen those fricking TikToks, dude? It's like, oh, it's a bunch of people that can't read and they're going to Puerto Rico or whatever. And so they made a song about, have you seen that, Trepan?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  I have not. What was the song? San Juan?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  It's like, it's a lot of people that are in trouble reading and writing who refuse to teach their kids how to read and write. Cause they can't, right?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, that's a good reason for not doing it. Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  I agree, but for years people have been pretending they can. And then they show the kid and that's like trickle down ignoromics, right?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  It's Reagan started it. And that's the kind of shit that we don't need in the community. So a lot of them are going to San Juan and they're doing this song on the way there to gain points with their Lord.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Okay. And then when they land, hopefully they have enough like spiritual, um, savings account to not go bankrupt.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. To get a Carlos and Charlie shirt on the way home. Can you bring it up? You haven't seen this thing, dude?

• 9:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  I don't even know if he can play this or not.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Hopefully it's not copyrighted.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  I think it was, oh, AI made the song. That was the craziest thing about it. This is it.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Okay. So I am into stuff like this. Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Have you heard this?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So it's basically,

• 10:05Speaker 01

  it's music pretty much for the learning disabled, okay? Which is where we are. There's a whole new genre of music for the learning disabled.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Sure, it helps with like shapes and colors.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Well, we thought for years they were listening to what we were listening to, right? And finally, people were like, no, they need their own music. Play a little more, play a little, just keep going.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  In the boot scootin' boogie.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like spiritual dyslexia.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yes, well, that's exactly what it is. And I think it's, I wanna say it's Baptist based, I'm not sure. But it is, there's some.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Well, you can see kind of like the proving ground of like the Pentecostal religion as well. You can see some of that seeping into the groundwater.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, you know, sometimes you wake up and your legs are all soggy and you're like, you know.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  How do I dry these puppies out?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Who did this?

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Who did this and why?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Who did this and why? Cause I used to always know someone would pee in my bed every night and it wasn't me.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Mm-mm, how could it be?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Dude, it couldn't have been that many times?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Mm-mm, no, once or twice you go, alright, I've been making some mistakes. Four, five, 10 times, you get up to double digits, you go like, I'm being persecuted.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  I'm being gang stalked by a bunch of pissers.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, it's obvious that they're sneaking in through our broken window downstairs near the kitchen.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  They're coming up, they're pissing on your boy, okay?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  I've talked to the landlord, he won't answer, it goes to Malord Amon.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, every time I call the landlord, it goes to a front desk of Christian Dior somewhere. So they have no clue what we're talking about.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  No, they go, how, they go, first of all, how can you smell through the phone? I don't know, you tell me who's pissing my bed and I'll answer your little inquiry.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  They're like, we could replace the sheets, that'll be eleven hundred dollars. And you're like, god damn, I'll just sit here in poverty and piss.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  I'll sit here in the potty bed I made, a water bed full of piss.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, that, that is what we need is.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  This is what we're gonna get to, cause the society's getting weird, can we agree?

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Sure, I'm the first, I'm the second to admit that, you were the first, yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Okay, and I'm glad we're here, and I'm glad we're here. And society is getting weird, people are not wearing gloves anymore when they drive. Okay, I saw an animal the other day, no hooves on his feet.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, what happened to the nuclear family?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  It's a big question, dude. I saw two gay men, they were wearing dog collars, dog, sitting there smoking in the car by himself, okay?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Windows up.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Ruins the resale value.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  It's just nobody, I don't know if people don't care or if they've taken our ability to care away.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah, if it is endemic of a greater social, sociopolitical problem, or if it's engendered upon the human race in general.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, because that's a big question, because the first thing you would take away from somebody is their ability to care.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Cause it leaves you in a spot, you know?

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the one true export of all of the maleficence of consciousness is hope without faith. God, that gives me the, that gives me the shivers. That's so scary, so people are now dogs without nails.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  God.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Mm-mm.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And they still think they're scratching each other's backs.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  No, they were born on third base and they thought they hit a triple.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a different time, man. The zygotes are different.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  I'll say that.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Have you seen a, have you seen a cat scan of a woman's belly recently?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  No, like a recent, like an up to date cat scan? I've been looking at like old ones to see how the technologies progressed.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  One woman, one woman had a frisbee and an eight ball in there. That was it. Yeah, so whatever is living in there or part time or whatever is keeping its luggage there.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Okay, obviously. Likes to party at the park, you know?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Party, that was a great WCW pay-per-view, the party at the park.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Was that, was that one?

• 14:23Speaker 02

  I know they did the bash at the beach, so I could only hope that they did the party at the park.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I hope they did too, and it was like kind of a, it was a beautiful day, it was by a river, right? They hung like a briefcase full of the world's, like the finest charcuterie board in the world, right? They hung the finest charcuterie board in the world up and you had to climb up a ladder, right? And then you had to get three strong kids and you had to climb up one of their backs, right? And you didn't know which one, and the winner got it.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  You didn't know which one had the best back.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause they kept their shirts on.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  So it's purely intuition.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Which, and also, if you're standing there intuitioning which kid has a nice back, dude, if you do it too strongly, you go to jail, right? So it would take you longer to get to the charcuterie.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if you do it too long, also Booker T's gonna hit you with a chair, so. It's, yeah, that was like a good thought experiment, that was like the Stanford prison experiment in action.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Oh, it's where we are. Um, Casey Rocket, dude, good to see you, man.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Good to see you, happy to be here.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  It's awesome, dude, you're such a talent and it's great to just see you like in the wild. You were in Huntington last night, I saw?

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was in Huntsville.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Or Huntsville, yeah, they keep changing the fucking name.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  I know.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Because they're trying to avoid the IRS or whatever.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I actually, it's funny, before I came here, I, I took a shower, a Gregorian, Greco-Roman shower and, which is of course a cheese, a cheese Danish that I put in a bunch of socks and I kinda strain it out over my head. But I wrote on my hand,

• 15:55Speaker 02

  I wrote on my hand last night, I don't know why, but I wrote Santa Cruz or Santa Fe, one of the Santas. So that doesn't really answer your question, but I did just look at my hand. But, but if the question was, did you just look at your hand, the answer is yes.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was in Huntsville at Levity Live, that was great.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, the stage, the, the location from the stage to the audience, it has a unique ratio there, do you feel that there?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  I do.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Like the height of the stage and the ratio of the audience is very rare there.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  It is, it is quite unusual, actually, the heliums aren't set up like that. Even, you know, Zany's Nashville, Zany's Chicago, Zany's Rosemont's kinda like that.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Slower to the ground.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Haven't spent time out there, would love to get out there, or, um, I'm not allowed to go, I, I shouldn't be there, I don't think, but one day I will go, when my mom passes.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get out there, cause she would want me to see it, you know, that's why.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  She'd want you, yeah, to see how they make the spaceships, they do the spaceships there.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  She would want me to see it, man.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Lockheed Martin.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Oh, is that where they're based?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, Lockheed Martin there, that's where they reverse engineered the anti-gravity technology, so. Apparently, that's where some of the scientists are going missing, you know, those scientists.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Oh, is that where that's happening really? In Rosemont?

• 17:19Speaker 02

  One of them went the way of the dodo, not, not, not Rosemont, at Huntsville.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Oh, and that's where those scientists have gone missing down in Huntsville?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  So one of them in particular, she did go the way of the dodo, she did take an early exit. But, yeah, they're being missing all over them place.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  It's crazy, dude, from MIT to MIA, bro, that's the craziest. At least 10 individuals connected to sensitive US aerospace, nuclear and defense research have died or disappeared recently. That's two different things, though, disappearing.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, that gives me more pause that we're a part of some like greater like neo-noir detective thing.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Them just, just dying, I mean, people die every day.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  People die every day. Yeah, William Neil McCaslin, a retired US Air Force Major, Major General, he vanished from his New Mexico home in February 2026, leaving his phone and identification behind. Well, Santa Claus or Santa Fe, dude, that takes you back to that question, man, that's a tough one.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah, well, somebody let the door open and the wrong dogs came home, you know what I mean?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I know who it was, it was some of those piss warriors from fricking Christian Dior probably pulled up and wet that dude down a little. You create, you create enough of a, of a, you know, of a, of a stream in the kitchen, a senior's gonna fuck, yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Flash flood.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Oh, a senior does not stand a chance against a flash flood, and I'll say that out loud, brother. I'll run into a damn Vineyard Vines and scream that.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Sure, and I'll be receptive to it the whole time.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I'll be sitting there, back there with a good book, just going, god dang.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  He's right, he's right, you'll poke your head out of a changing room, be like, alright, never had a chance.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  That motherfucking never had a chance, bro.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you slick somebody up like,

• 19:18Speaker 02

  and I've said this for for months.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I was there when you said it.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you slick somebody up good enough, anything can be a slip and slide. So a staircase, most homes have a staircase. So if they're slick enough, bye, bye bye.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Bye. Grandpa and he's gone. You can barely even, you know? Or you try to use his real name, then Henry, you know, like, that's a crazy thing. Now, a black grandpa, they'll they'll mill around a little, but even the the the stream is even gonna get them. You know, you would think.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, they, you know, they're probably more worldly and they'll they'll see this. See the stream maybe before the white grandpa, but either way, when the flood comes. Come on, man.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  You don't stand a chance, baby. That's the Bible working.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's Noah, the piss flood.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  That's it, brother. Drip, drip.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  It's scary to think about.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  It's scary to think about, dude. Ah, you're living, ah, anyway, you're living in Chicago now, huh?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I moved from Austin in December and I lived in St. Louis for six months and now I've been settling in Chicago. Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  How's it been there?

• 20:32Speaker 02

  It's been good. They have a hot dog culture that is out of this world. Relish mustard, the works.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  And the people have been treating me with grace and kindness. And I in turn have been passing on to them a smile.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Very fair.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Did you miss Austin when you left? What what what was the reason of leaving Austin? Because you were, things were going good there, right?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. Yeah, I worked at a mothership for a year and I I won the equivalent. I won the Austin's, not the funniest person, but the Austin Comedy Competition. So, yeah, I was really ingrained in the scene there.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  And that was 2021, was it or no?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  When I won that, I moved there in 2021. I think I won that in 2023, maybe.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  But, yeah, I have a lot of really great friends there. I felt like maybe it was time for me to do something else. I'm going to grad school, so you wrote me a letter of recommendation for that. And I'm going to DePaul to do screenwriting. So I just wanted to make some changes in my life. Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  That's wild, dude. Congratulations, man.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  On getting in over there. Are you excited about it?

• 21:44Speaker 02

  I am. It starts in September and then I'm gonna write my great American novel.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Is there a novel to kind of were inspired by? Like, was there a novel that you kind of read that led you to even kind of spark that in your head? Or a book that you read that kind of sparked that in your head? Because I think, like, I like to write, so I think there's things in in like, there was one book I read and I was like, huh?

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's some good, like, memoir type books that I really liked. One of them is a book called Permanent Midnight by a guy named Jerry Stahl that they made into a movie with Ben Stiller.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Another great one is Singing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanigan, who used to be the lead singer of The Screaming Trees. So, yeah, some memoirs and then a lot of like screenplays, like, obviously, I'm a big fan, as most people are, of Paul Thomas Anderson, who did Magnolia and One Battle After Another.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  PTA.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  PTA, yeah. So, yeah, I love movies and

• 22:42Speaker 02

  I like movies and I'm just as happy with a good book. I can't stress that enough. But, yeah, I want to learn how to like write screenplays and stuff like that. And I want to be a multi hyphenate. I want to be a bad boy and I want to be a sweetie.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Hmm. How do you do that? I wonder. I'm trying to think of like a candy that really presents itself like that.

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Oh, Sour Patch Kids.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  You think? Oh, because they're kids.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  And there's nothing more rotten than a kid.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Right, but they're, but but they're also very cherubian. Kids are very cherubescent.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  They're very much like the angels. They're gods, little wiggers or whatever, right? And so when you add that sourness to them, you're saying this is another thing about them. And you might not like it, white boy.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Might, you might not like your little piglet.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think there's a lot of that that goes on.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  When you combine stuff like that, there's also some candies that some people can't even get through. Like, we had kids that couldn't handle gobstoppers or whatever and they had to move to another school. We'd have, you know, and people were like, you know what I'm saying? Like, they just couldn't, they couldn't figure it out.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, they, it's a lesson in patience. It's, for me, when I think of gobstoppers, I think that the line of demarcation is only visible to those outside the cultural means of production. And so, so it really is Leninism at its most Stalin gradian, but it's it's beautiful. So you can see that's actually a model of the universe.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Oh, they call them the Berlin Ball, you know? That's why, because you just, you, there's so much to go through, which you have to be willing to do it.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  You have to be. If you want to get to that center, which is just plutonium, it is yellowcake uranium. So it'll make you sick as a dog, but it'll make you grow in ways you should not.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, I saw a kid who had to take his shoes off in the middle of one because they just, his feet were popping right out of them. This is forever chemicals. These is, and a lot of rumors is that that Wonka was working early with forever chemicals. That's rumor.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  But there's a lot of PFAs in there. I saw a video the other day that people's grandparents now have PFAs in them. So they're suggesting like shutting down hugs, shutting down.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, the original recipe was Zyklon B, so it does make people like, it'll make you happy in the moment, but sad for a lifetime. So.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's your choice, bucko.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, one, Mr. Grinch, you know, that's what's going on. Short answer, yes, several popular candies formerly marketed under the Wonka brand, like nerds in Lafayette have recently tested positive for very high levels of arsenic.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Thank you, perplexity, which is a persistent forever contaminant in the environment and can accumulate in the body over time. Is it? It's not good. It's not. Is it worth it, though?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  They make the candies good. When you're a kid and you get the nerds or what was it for you? Was there a candy that you were like, yeah?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Maybe like a Charleston Chew.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Inside the freezer in a fridge that's unplugged. So it's planting this seed of like, this is getting. So it's like, so like, my body's telling me this is getting colder.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  But my heart of hearts is like, brother, you know, this is room town.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Here was an old trick we would use if we were driving around and doing coke, right?

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  We'd fill the glove box with Charleston Chews, right? So when the cop pulled you over, you open that, he sees them all fall out.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  And he goes, oh, sorry, fellas.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Be on your way. Sorry, boys.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  It was just like, it changed the level of anger and and curiosity of the cop.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  It put it a little bit more of a joy.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  It was a little bit more, oh, wow, there's piñatas in here.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, these are just a couple of candy guys out for a midnight stroll. Well, the the original tagline for Sour Patch Kids was there is no greater sin than the sin of being born. So that is powerful.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's something. I remember, uh, Sugar Honkies Unite had that. Who had that slogan? Okay?

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Because that was a big one.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Isn't there a candy called Sugar Daddies?

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Oh, there was. And then a website bought it out. But there was also Sugar Ain't Got Nothing on This Clan. Who had that?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  The Sugar Union? Yeah. Oh, no, they're like the Pinkerton's.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Sugar Daddies, that was it, man.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Oh, they were a thing. And then you eat a couple of them and you go, I shouldn't be eating this.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  You have you have one Sugar Daddy, you go, I shouldn't be eating that.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  You're right. And then they gave the babies away. There was, here's the craziest part. And this is you going back to the nuclear family breaking down. There's never a mother involved, you know?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  It was Sugar Daddy, Sugar Babies.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Sure. It was like, yeah, the pursuit of happiness. It was like gorgeous, but tragic.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it was like I Am Legend or whatever. It was.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  It's like I, Robot, yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Very similar to some of that, dude. It was kind of like her with Joaquin Phoenix. It was just a just a challenged man dancing around in a mall.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Willing to dry up the air to get a little sugar in his system.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  The old reboot. Yeah, they called that the old Milwaukee handshake. Yum.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Oh, God. There's nothing that'll make you leave your family faster than a good bit of sugar.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  I thought, and I hate to default to riff, I thought surely you were talking about Wonka being a progener of Forever Chemicals. I was like, oh, surely this is just a Christmas riff. And then you pulled up the paper trail, which engendered this idea that was very much factual. Where the, yeah, it is bad. It's giving people bone stuff. That's not good.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the saddest part is the injuries, our grandfathers had real injuries, like missing a limb from like, you know, he was, you know, got drunk and he was petting a landmine or something in Iwo Jima, right?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  Right, sure.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Missing his wife, maybe put some of his wife clothes on a landmine, got a little crazy, whatever. Lost a limb, lost half, you know, lost something important that had semen hiding in it. But now it's just some guy, you know, you see some guy in a wheelchair and you're like, what happened? He's like, you know, I had too many nerd ropes, you know, or something like, just the, the, the turnover. The embarrassment of our injuries is gonna start to get real and it's gonna start to get real fast.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. It, well, it's already, they call it, it's at the event horizon. So like, we can't stop what's coming. We can only hope to like build a fallout shelter. But it, yeah, I've met some older guys who thought that like nerds clusters were like, basically like a, like a tasty hydrogen bomb. So it like looks, it looks like the atom, like the, the base molecules of human life. But they eat them and they like shit their pants and scream at their family or whatever.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  But then the crazy part is they start to choose that.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  They choose that behavior.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. They don't know any better.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  But it's gonna get weird when our, what, you know, what happened to you, you know? And you're like, yeah, I hurt my, you know, like I was, after years of plowing or working or whatever, doing trade work or whatever. And now it just seems like, you know, after years of hiding from my wife in the other room eating whatchamacallits or whatever now. You know, I have a fucking, I have a pH balance of a fucking fluorescent light bulb at a mall.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  I have cellular mitosis. If you eat, what is, there's a limit on, on the package. If you eat more than five, you get osmosis Jones.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you get like a little guy like fighting slime crime.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that. And I'm guessing that's happening at an Ozzy concert?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, yeah, like Youngblood doing Ozzy covers and then, yeah, the whole crowd, it's like Astroworld. They just start dropping like flies.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  That's hilarious, dude.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  But that's the world we live in.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  I guess, if we're really here.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, if we're not just an interference pattern on a different plane of consciousness.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Let's take a call.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Let's take a call from ourselves, man. Shopify. You heard me. Shopify. It's hands down the best place to start and grow a business these days. If you're trying to start your own thing, you need to show them. You gotta show them. Shopify is the platform where you really own everything, your store, your community. Plus Shopify gets your products in front of shoppers where they are. Google, YouTube, TikTok shop, the shop app, even ChatGPT.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  We use them for our merch store. They help. Shopify, they do it. Shopify made me realize, oh, I can actually do this. And once I got that feeling, I can focus my efforts on other things. Thought about starting a business? This is your sign. Get started at Shopify.com/ Theo. That's Shopify.com/ T H E O. Y'all ever think about how something got its start? Like Mountain Dew, for example. I always thought it just sort of appeared one day, you know? Just sitting in a cooler, just a little newborn can of beverage glory. But nope, it's actually, it's, it's right out of Tennessee. Yes, it is. Real place, real people.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Two brothers working tirelessly to nail that citrus kick that we all love today. Appalachian roots, baby. It's bold, it's loud, it's got that I'll figure it out myself attitude. That attitude is still in it today. Still bold, still unmistakable, still do. It's an American original that's been tasting great since forty-eight. Which feels right, man. It just, it does, cuz this, this ain't just a drink, this is a hometown story in a can. Yes, sir, right here. Next time you grab a Dew, just know it's more than just a drink, it's an American original. Mountain Dew, tasting great since forty-eight.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Do you, so you, you've taken a break from comedy when you moved out?

• 33:11Speaker 02

  I did. Yeah, I took like, well, I did some gigs. I did some shows with Fiona Colly, our friend Fiona.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  She's so funny.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  And.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  And Matt is her husband.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yes. I don't know if I've met him, but I guess I'll meet him tonight, probably. That's Ayn's. And then Dylan Carlin, oh, do you know Dylan Carlin?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yes, I do know him. He, he's in Austin.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's so funny. So, yeah, I like, kind of stopped headlining for a bit and then got back to doing like some local stuff. I got involved in the St. Louis scene and I like featured again and yeah, just kind of started over a little bit. I'm running a new hour and it's been good to enjoy doing it, you know, when it feels like a job, you get kind of jaded. And it's like, I just ever wanted, all I ever wanted was to riff. So it just, things got complicated. Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Were you happy with like, cuz Kill Tony was, was and is kind of like The Tonight Show in a way, right? People would call it that. Kind of like The Tonight Show, but you know, a different like amalgamation of it, right? Or like a present, semi-present day.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  You know, there's also dark sorcerers that are involved with it, but it's exactly where we are in the world. And it's great. It's a great show. Did you feel like being attached to that became too much or like, how did you handle like the popularity and celebrity? Because I would say you were one of the most popular guys that kind of came through that system.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Did it feel like that? Because even in my own life and recently, like I've, you know, like in the past year, I've thought a lot about like ego and what is popularity or mean and the value of it and stuff like that, you know?

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think I started to assign some of my self-worth, some of my self-worth and the opinions of others. Not that I, I would never look at stuff online, but I guess I got too wrapped up in my sense of self, like the poltergeist of self, like what, what all of this meant. Cuz all I ever did was stand up for years and years and years, all I did, seven days a week. And then if it wasn't going well, then I didn't know who I was, you know? So, yeah, more so than the Kill Tony thing, um, that, you know, it gave me a platform and it allowed me to do all this stuff. I just tried to take, um, take the good and, and not think about anything else, but

• 35:29Speaker 02

  yeah, I was just really wrapped up in all this pressure that I was either misinterpreting or putting on myself and I didn't like it. I didn't enjoy doing it anymore.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and as you say, like when it wasn't going well, I didn't like myself, kind of.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, I can relate to some of that, man.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I felt like, and you know, I try to improvise so much riff, um, some have said, many have said. And if I wasn't able to catch my thoughts perfectly, and that opens the door for so much pressure on myself, where I was thinking of myself, maybe rightfully so, maybe not. Duality, yes, laws of polarity, that I had so much potential. And so every night I would go out and I would try to use a hundred percent of my potential on stage. And when I set myself up for that, there's no way I can possibly reach that. Which makes it fun to keep going, makes it always exciting, but I will never be satisfied with it.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Right. And always set you up for a little bit of failure in a way.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, which a little bit of that is good. It's good to strive and, and you know, comedy is a, well, it's a lifelong thing. If that's what you choose to do with your life. But I came to realize, and in, and probably in December, that there has to be more to life than this. There has to be more than a performative affect. I have to be worth more than what I think I'm worth to my friends, just as a performer. And if my whole world is wrapped up in the business of show business, then I am doomed to go spiritually bankrupt. There's nothing that will ever be enough, you know? So, yeah, I just try, it was really nice, you know, I made a lot of friends

• 37:14Speaker 02

  that weren't comedians for the first time in a long time.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  And it was just great, you know, people who didn't know who I was to know that I have worth to people, like not being funny. Like I can just go to the movies and I can talk about movies, or we can kick a soccer ball around, which I never did. But I could have.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  And if we had found a soccer ball at any point in the beginning of the year, I could have kicked it around.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  And it's and it's and that kept me going. So I would wake up every day and I would make myself a promise and it was firm and it was if I run into an unattended soccer ball today, or when I could borrow, just for the time being, I will kick it back and forth with whoever's around.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I know exactly. He will kick it back and forth with some victim of who had too many of those little crackle bars or whatever and is now in a wheelchair and the last limb he can move is just soccer and back and forth with a stranger passing through.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  He has to do one of those muscle tests where he has to hit his knee at the exact right time to kick it.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  And he does it himself now. Yeah, because it's that's his insurance provider. They mail you the little hammer with the little triangle and you do it yourself at home.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. That's Moderna. Yeah, that's that's Moderna or Pfizer, I think.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I just got a kit the other day to take a couple of cysts off my own body. They'll mail you the scalpel now and all of the stuff. They'll mail you a picture of a nurse. You put that up in the corner and you do it, man. It's pretty cool.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  And the picture, not to cut you off, but I think that it's one of those pictures where you look at it one way and she's beautiful.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And then you look at it the other way and it's a witch.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, her name's Ramona Lisa is her name. It's an Italian nurse and you can pick what ethnicity you want the nurse to be.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  Oh, good.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  And it comes with a chocolate, which is ironic because.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  That's what got us into this position.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Exactly, dude.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  You're like, okay, I feel like this is cyclical.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Great. This is what happens when there's no free healthcare.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's where we are, right there. Two different women. And both of those were drawn by Christina Mariani as well. I want to let everybody know that.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  On an Etch A Sketch, which is unbelievable. I've seen Christina do freehand, which is if you've never seen someone freehand draw, I highly recommend it, but.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Well, she's in that she's in that new musical. It's a one person musical.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a one woman show. She's doing it at Edinburgh. I've seen that.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  It's by Statesboro, yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  It's in the Delta, yeah. It's the male version of Statesboro.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah. It's Statesboro by way of Valdosta.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess. That's where I went to college. I went to college at Georgia Southern.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Did you go over there?

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Yes, by Savannah.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Were you jealous that you weren't at Savannah because like just being like an like, I think you're a creative and artistic guy. I think you're one of the most unique guys in comedy. Or I think, I don't know if that's the best thing to say to somebody. I think it's true, but I think you just have a unique way of being alive, which I think is pretty cool because it's hard to figure that out in the world.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  But did you ever want to be over there at Savannah, SCAD, I think it was? Yeah. You always hear about that place in the South. I went to college at Charleston for a little bit and you'd always hear about SCAD, like the people at SCAD, you know?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was like ground zero for guys in scarves.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yes, summer scarves too, which is a rare.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. You know what they say, summer scarves bring winter tears.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  And that's George Orwell as well.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yes, that's 1984. That's so Orwellian, truly a démarouge of existential pessimism, but that, no, I never, I didn't. And I'm happy that we are bringing up the tenets of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but it has been, it's been a crazy summer. No, I wish I went to SCAD. I didn't have artistic inclinations until I was probably 20. That's when I started doing standup, but no, I didn't know. I was more into boozing. So it was the only school I applied to and they call it States Vegas.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  And it had some great bars out there.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Good bar scene.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Good bar scene. A lot of field parties, parties in the woods, mudding.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. A lot of that. So you got into that culture.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, my mom's a horse trainer. So I grew up in North Georgia, sort of by the foothills of Appalachia, I think.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Is that like near?

• 41:41Speaker 02

  La Grange?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  No, it starts with an L or a different letter. It's Tacoa. That's what I'm thinking of with the T. Beautiful little area.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  It's about like Gainesville by like Forsyth County. So like up there on 400.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I want to get up there one day. What's one of the major outputs up there or like exports?

• 42:01Speaker 02

  I don't even know what they do up there. The commerce isn't exactly bustling.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Oh, it's not a busy area?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Well, now it's become, it has become like nicer, like sort of towards like Alpharetta, where they had that helium there in Alpharetta.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Oh, they got free helium up there?

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So nitrous will cost you, but helium's a handshake and that's, and I do sell stickers that say that and we're printing them right now. But no, it's, I don't know. When I lived there, it was really rural. So anyways, we got into mudding at an early age as as most kids of my generation.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good way to be it. And did you feel like, because you kind of have like, I don't know, you created such like a unique you, right? And do you, do you ever think like, is this the real me or is this a me that I created? Does it ever come to your mind yet?

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  And it's no judgment against you. I've just had that happen in my own life recently. I quit, like I took a break from touring and so much of my life I didn't realize had been like attached to, oh, I always have somewhere to go. Oh, I gotta get going. There's somewhere to be. There's somewhere I need to be. There's somewhere I'm going to be seen that's coming up. And then now it's not really like that and it's okay, but it's just been interesting to be like, okay, well, say if that were gone forever, then what, you know, who would, how would I, what's going on with me, you know?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. How would I, because it is, it's a degree of show business past a certain point is almost not even like seeking. It's like running. It's like you're running, you think you're running towards something, but you're running like away again from this idea that I have just coined the poltergeist of self about the visage of like, who is Casey Rocket? Who is this interference pattern of like where I grew up, what my friends were like, what I like to do. And then also this person I try to present on stage, which is, you know, it more or less is me. I'm just having, I'm just letting myself be a goofy guy.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, I have had instances of like ego death, either chemically induced or just being in a really low period of depression where, yeah, I look around and I go, what is all, what is all this for? You know? But if I did have any answer, it would be that the macro mirrors the micro so that in the little victories of my life, I figure out my greater purpose. Like so, it's easier for me now because I've gotten used to it. The first six months of this year of not running around so much. It's I've been so, I've been so much happier where I, I'm just a really stressed out guy. You know, I get, I wear the world really heavily. So if I have to do anything,

• 44:42Speaker 02

  like even just like go do a local showcase, it used to drive me nuts. It ruined my whole day.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Just the stress and knowing that it's coming. It's hard to operate. Yeah, some people seem to be able to operate kind of freely, even if there's something looming, you know? Like me, I'm already like, fuck, man, my marriage, what will my wedding day be like? That shit's gonna fucking be nuts. It's gonna be hectic and my, if my wife's there, she's gonna be pissed or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like, but that shit will weigh me down. It's like on a regular Thursday afternoon, dude. Not to mention whatever else I have to do or sometimes like, yeah, that's such a cool way to say it that yeah, sometimes I just feel like I wear the world heavy. And some people, it just seems to be like this, like summer Saul that, you know?

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  That it's nothing. Like it seems to be like, just like a little baby kite landed on their shoulder and they just brush it off, you know? Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Like sometimes I wouldn't want to go to sleep at night because I'd be like, shit, this is just leading to tomorrow and it already feels like so much.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  I know.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  You know?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Not to complain, I'm just, I'm also okay. It's just like, yeah, you just think about this. Sometimes that shit gets heavy, you know?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think that professionally and just part of our gumption, and I am not using the correct word when I say that, but we just want, you know, we have lives that are based on creation, right? So they're, we're engendered to create and, and I know if I have any down period where I'm not creating or I don't have to, I feel like I'm not doing enough. So, yeah, it would drive me batty. I'd be running in circles chasing my own tail. But it's nice to do just like regular stuff. Like I'll read for a bed and then, because I'll get so stressed out about like nothing. Yeah, I'll be like, man, I gotta, I gotta like knock up some barista. Like

• 46:30Speaker 02

  I gotta have a child with like a barista soon.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  And then I'll be like, who's a barista? What am I gonna name the kid?

• 46:37Speaker 01

  That's beautiful. And I think it's beautiful, though.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I feel like anytime I go in a coffee shop, I hope maybe I fall in love or something like that. I am the kind of guy who I do think anytime I walk into a place could be gas station, coffee shop, you know, tire center, not tire center, but somewhere a place they're gonna have women.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Sure, like a Firestone.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a Firestone, but that's been in business and then has a little bit of extra loot to keep a decent looking broad at the front.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  A hostess?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Is there anything more divine than a greeter at a Firestone tires?

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And she's standing there and there's three tires right by her and I'm like, hey, baby, let's hit the road.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  I got one in the trunk.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I got one in the chamber, honey.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  My car is on cinder blocks right now. You got three, I got one. Let's start a life.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Hey, honey, I put the sin in sender. You feel me? Let's get out there.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  I got a pair of cedar tires out back, pair of cedar sinis.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, that has had to have been the worst tires back in like the wagon wheel days, back when Little House on the Prairie was just starting out or whatever.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Um, which is a new season out now. Go watch it. My friend Crosby Fitzgerald is in it and I've been watching it. Someone caught me watching it yesterday on my phone at the gym. So gonna go to a different gym now, but.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  They'll pull the lunk alarm on your ass. Like at a Planet Fitness, they'll lunk alarm you to high hell.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Bring up the lunk alarm because I gotta make sure they're still using it, you know?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  That is one of the better, I wish all places of business had something comparable to a lunk alarm.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  They used to just yell fatty or whatever, you know, you know, or yeah, they would yell something like that, you know?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Bad bones, bone structure.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, they used to yell steroid boy or whatever, but now, there we go. They still have it?

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Dude, he gets it with a 20 feet of a Planet Fitness or in the lunk lawn.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Jake Cutler from the Chicago Bears.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  Oh my dear God.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Wow. They hit him with it. And it's just for somebody that's being, I guess, overtly, what?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Strong and in good shape?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  They, they hit that like the doomsday clock was at one minute to midnight.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. This is some people's Y2K, dude.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that caused a splinter of effect that effectively ruined Reaganomics.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Well, here's the crazy part is, dude, that guy, like, now, we don't even realize it. They're getting us to think that being in shape is bad, right? It's all this slow, let me tune the dial a little different, right? Let me just mess with the opportunities here a little. That's how they're doing it, man.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's planting bad seeds.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  But cedar cyanide, dude, those, if you got cedar cyanide wheels on a wagon.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  That was the worst, dude.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  It was, yeah, it was terminal. It was like having fleas like within your like roost. Yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  That's so brutal. It's a fox in a chicken coop situation. So they just go wild.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  But it's built in. Imagine you get fresh cedar wagon wheels and they have cyanide in them. And they're like, people are like, these are cedar cyanide. You're like, yeah, it's the best we have right now.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  It's all we have. If you want to go take the route through Sierra Nevadas, you're gonna have to get this before the fall comes, like the Donner Party.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  But you just had to do what you had to do for your family back then. Families were tougher.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Well, things have just changed, man. I mean, now you would have a Jeffrey Dahmer would have a footwear, you know? He would have a shoe.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, Charles Bukowski should be sold to a rich family as a midwife. And I, I've said that for, oh my God, yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Look, we are becoming new slaves. That's what I've been, I've been saying that.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Get the F, dude.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  You're on a chain gang. Yeah, you're making license plates. That is just what the prison industrial complex is, so. I am happy that there is a problem endemic to the state of Alabama that I might be able to bring up. There's a documentary called The Alabama Problem, so.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Is there?

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's on HBO Max.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  I haven't seen that one, but I have seen the one about the mall that's kind of going out of business. Have you seen that one?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  About the death of the American mall?

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but this one is a specific mall in Alabama. Bring that up. This is a great documentary. If you want to, if it's raining or something and you want to watch something.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  I think I saw the trailer for it.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Jasper Mall.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  See if it officially closed or not, man. This was pretty cool, dude. That's, it's a good documentary. It's.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  It's enclosed, or is it closed?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot there. Um.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Rural King. Well, that's good. They replaced it with a Rural King, which is what they're gonna do for our nuclear families to.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Well, that's just where we're going. It's like when this, oh, JCPenney closed its doors there. But, um, but yeah, that documentary is pretty good, man.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview, the first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old, the tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom, big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still add. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now. But asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms that. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Don't let that be you. Don't get discouraged. If something feels uncomfortable, speak up for yourself. You have a voice. You have a heart. There's a reason for that.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Cut out the noise and do what's right for your own well-being. That's what I've done. BetterHelp can help. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And they do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/theo. That's better H E L P dot com slash T H E O.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Have you, have you kept in touch with a lot of the people from Austin still? Or did you kind of like, take like a break from the communication there? Like, um?

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Um, no, I, I still talk. I had to go back in May and I did my last, um, show at Creek and Cave. And Creek's always been really great to me, so I, um, I'm going back on the first of, uh, well, I'm going back soon. There's a special event. I don't want to spoil it, but I'm going back. Um, so yeah, I talked to a lot of my really good friends from mothership. You know, we were all door guys together, so. Um, I chat with them on the phone and, yeah, part of like, um, changing my life, and I have no qualms in saying this, but I'm sober and I, and that's a part of my life. And, um, part of that for me just means being, um, there for my friends. So like every day I'll like call a friend and stuff that I would do, I guess, when I was younger in the pre-social media age.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  You know, so I'll call people and feel like all these kids are on their fucking phones now.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's popular.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  Sure. Um, but, but not, nobody calls anymore.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  I, I agree. You know what? That's a good thought. Uh, sometimes I've, I've certainly gotten away from texting and I'd rather just send a voice note. I think that's better. At least if you can kind of get a feel what's going on. And even then, like, I, I will enjoy a call. And I think honestly, some people appreciate it. It's like.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  And I think you just have to establish if you want like, hey, that's where I'm at in my life. I want to hear my friend's voice, you know? Like, I want to know, I want to have, have some semblance just in what they're saying or how their energy is as to how they're really feeling. Because that's what, that's what we're based on. You can't pick it up through text. It's pretty much impossible. So.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  And that, that's just a little bit of the tuning of the dial. It's like where we're at, where the future's taking us. It feels kind of scary.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, some of that is lost. Yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel like I operated better too be, as a person before, uh, technology got too bonkers. Because I used to like to daydream, even though a lot of it had dangerous Voldemortan people in there. Like even though there was like a lot of pillaging of our home in a lot of my daydreams, it was still like, it was a chance for my mind to rattle on a little.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  So my mind didn't always feel like it was so attached to me. I did like the time when you had more space just to kind of daydream and your mind got to like.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. I don't, you know, I do that a lot when I'm driving. So you're saying you would daydream in a way that was like the last bastion of free speech, um, for a, um, mind of, um.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Cut this part out. Cut this fucking part out.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  My shit would be pretty lit. Frederick Douglass would show up at some of my daydreams like.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  There was always someone at the pulpit.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  To let you know the type of energy that was there. It was life or death. There were trials that were going on. It was very Salem witchy and, you know?

• 56:28Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. It's like the crucible. Keep that part.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  It was like the crucible kind of meets McDonald's kind of.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Sure. So if Grimace was like judge, jury and executioner, which he often is in so many of our afterlives, as I come to understand it. Grimace is like a tulpa and, um, of, he's like an amalgamation, like a transmogrification of Saint Michael. So.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Is that what people are saying?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's like a figurehead for like this, for like this demigod we know as Saint Michael. And when he lets you in, it is just a big pool of creamy chili sauce.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Oh, good. I know I've prayed to him before for new condiments.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  It's, that's him answering a prayer.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go, dude. But dude, this is where we're heading. People don't want to look at the signs that like, there are children who go to bed and you'll, they'll wake up in the morning and they'll piss the perfect shape of Grimace into their sheets. Like moms are like, oh, that's nothing. It's just 100 nights in a row of that. Like.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Nobody's connecting the dots of where we're going.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  No, like that you piss the shroud of Turin, like. You pissed a perfect, exact Gollum of things come to pass.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Dude, yeah, I know. They cracked some kid open and he had 11 scenes from The Patriot with Mel Gibson inside of him.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  And Heath Ledger.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it was my understanding it was just the Gibson scenes. So there was no Heath Ledger, which is like, okay, what is this? The director's cut?

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, what is this? And then he just screamed, aim small, miss small, and disappeared into the ether. It's just where we are. Um, you mentioned, what do you want to say?

• 58:09Speaker 02

  No, I'm just kind of just like coming to terms with some of that. Cause it is, it's an absolute, you know, and my will, like my will's greater than myself, you know? I have a higher purpose and some of that is grimace, like putting a kid in a wood chipper. Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I remember when we were in school and some kids didn't understand how the greater than or less than signs worked. And we weren't allowed to kill those kids. And that always kind of made me upset.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'm not even trying to get into some of that stuff, but.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, facts.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  I don't know my times tables.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  So what do we do? Where do we go from here?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  You're right, dude. And it's weird if I'm willing to give you a pass, but I'm not willing to give them, you know?

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, it's not a meritocracy, you know?

• 58:53Speaker 01

  It isn't. It was.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  It was in a perfect world when Tolstoy was kicking around with Dostoevsky.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  It was, dude, when Downton Abbey was doing their shit, when that shit was popping.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. When they, oh my God, me and my boys, we would sit down every downtown in Abbey Tuesday.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  It was good, dude.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  It was so good.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  The first fucking season of it?

• 59:13Speaker 02

  So good.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  God, I wanted to be a butler. I'd be a butler's son or whatever.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, just to be grandfathered into the butler trade would be such a blessing.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  And the butler comes walking in, he's like, Gregory's gay, you know? And you're like, what?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  He told you in confidence?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  I know, dude. Dude, just get the dishes. Leave your son out of this. That guy was so good, bro.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's weird to see him like that, not sleeping, standing up in a closet. Cause.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Well, he was a stunt double in a lot of coffins.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  And people don't give him any credit, you know?

• 59:50Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Who was his name? That guy was a great actor.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  He looks like the guy who did the Wilhelm scream. You know what I'm talking about? The Wilhelm scream.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  The guy who just won the contest?

• 59:58Speaker 02

  There is something called the Wilhelm scream, which is this scream they use in like a million different movies. You would recognize it if you play it.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Jim Carter.

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  I think he's the guy who does that special, special scream from the golden age of Hollywood.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Well, let's look that up. The Wilhelm scream.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Say it again.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  You sure?

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  That sounds like Wilhelm, Memphis. Where is that from?

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's Beale Street. If Beale Street could talk, it would sound like that.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  So yeah, that guy did that. And then I guess he had to go to court to get like, uh, his residuals from it.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  You're really?

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  So that scream, they're, they're calling it the, the scream of hope. So it was one of the first famous.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Scream of hope? Are you serious?

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  So yeah, it's like a symbol. It's like.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  How bad has it gotten?

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  Well, it's like, you know, like South Africa used Rodriguez, um, in his albums to like, uh, fight against apartheid. So like, this is the American version of that.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember in Tyler Perry's, uh, Mandela Goes to Jail, I think.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Exactly. Exactly. So Sheb Woolley was the stage name of that old, old guy who lived in the closet. And he just did this, he did this special scream that became like a message of hope.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I love hearing this. And this is says it right here. And this says, the famous Wilhelm scream was originally voiced by actor, musician Sheb Woolley. In 1951, it was recorded for the movie Distant Drums for a scene where a man is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. Play it one more time and let's put it, let's put it where it belongs in our heads.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Oh, he gay, bro. That's all I'm saying, bro.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  He's a friend of Dorothy.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Let's just say he's a friend of Dorothy.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  That's what they used to say.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Or yeah, he's a Toto owner.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  People would say that. Have you seen that guy in Austin?

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  He got a Toto?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Who goes on the streets and he's like, you think this guy is gay, man? Have you seen those videos?

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Pull this up. This is worth watching, dude. This is one of the best things that's ever happened, I think. And it just goes to show how men are obsessed with, um,

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  with pointing the 11th finger at each other.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're making a call to the bullpen, but nobody's showing up.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  You know what I'm talking about, Trevon?

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Have you ever seen Elijah Wood? Um, he rides around Austin on a little scooter sometimes.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  No, but I would believe that.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  I know, right?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  And I hope that happens.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Me too. I hope that for the rest of the world and the rest of today.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Well, here's what we should do.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  There's a day, one day in Austin that changed everything.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  So this is how rumors get started here. And let's go into this. Let's click on this. This is a picture for those at home of Elijah Wood on a bird scooter.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Oh my God, he's ripping a heater.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Fuck, yeah, he is.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Dude, hands free, pro-union ripping a heater.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Bro, he saved the whole fricking world.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  The day that changed everything. He's got a thousand yard stare that's staring into the future of American society.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  He's hunting Gollums, dude.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's hunting the Nephilim. He's the watcher.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. Oh, definitely. He's got his ball certificates out.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Can you, what did that say? Did it say anything else about him on that? That's crazy. And did you see him while you were there?

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  I have never seen something like this in person. It's by evil Mopak. So this is, yeah, this is spellwork right here. This is deep. Elijah, a spellwork, I told you, equals magic. I fucking told you.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  This is an incantation.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Despite my joke weighs online, I actually quite miserly with my laughs. It's just how I was paved. But when something gets me, it really gets me. So on the fateful day when I saw the most quintessential 2018 Austin photo humanly possible pop into my Twitter timeline, I was reduced to a queev.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  Okay, Lovecraft, what are all these adjectives?

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  This is just some fucking Overwatch addict putting this shit together. Can you zoom down a little? Does it say anything else after that part? Oh, that's it. Oh, and they have to pay to read it. Come on.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  It said it was taken in September, 2018 in Austin, Texas, while attending the fantastic festival. He tried out the, uh, app-based rental scooter Lime for the first time while holding a cigarette.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Oh, it's pretty cool. That is so cool. This is like pictures taken moments before tragedy. Well, let's hope not. I mean, well, actually it would be, he's fine. So it's not.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  He avoided his destiny.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're not casting anything. That's the only thing. I don't want to cast anything.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  No. No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  I don't want to do any spellwork.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  No, and, and we don't have to. And I, I don't do talismanic magic. It's my understanding. Neither does Elijah Wood. So.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  But I saw you brought something. I saw you have a little thing, a bag of hair or whatever. What's that for?

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. So that's spare hair. So, um, that's hair care. Um, it's part of my self-care routine. So if anyone, while I'm talking to them says like, hey, a big clump of your hair just fell out.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  You're ready to go?

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll be like, oh, thank you. First of all, thanks for holding space for that. Um, second of all, do you have any Elmer's glue? So, yeah, it allows me to kind of like keep my hairline like how I want it. So.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it looks great.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  Thanks. Yeah.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  And I think if someone mails you their hair and you care for it.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  It's everything.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  That's crazy, dude.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  That's what fatherhood means to me. It's like having a son who's bald as a baby, like Caillou or like Franklin the turtle. And then just getting a big old glob of mush and just smooching it on top of that freaking think tank.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  One, one time we were on a cruise ship. Not one of the ones that like is sinking or has like shit floating on it or whatever that Netflix keeps advertising. But one of the regular ones, we were on there and we had Halloween, but we didn't have any costume store. So some guy would sold a bunch of his pubic hair and people were like gluing it on with Honey's mustaches and stuff. So everybody could be, uh, like the husband from, um, everybody could be Sam Elliott.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Let's play this video right here.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  I think most people will, but I don't know. Feel like he gay all straight. Nigga look like he gay a bit. Nigga booty power and shit. Why you say that? That nigga got this little like gay outfit on like it's Halloween and shit like what the fuck you trying to do nigga? Alright, you gay all straight. I'm straight in the bit. You think other people gonna think that? Like they gonna know that. Feel like he gay all straight. Nigga gays a bit.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Every time.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  Look at that dumbass.

• 1:06:49Speaker 04

  You gay all straight. Straight, bro, my time. You think other people gonna think that? Feel like he gay all straight.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  That's a small man.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  Why you say that? Because, look at him. You gay all straight. I'm gay. I'm straight. You think other people gonna think that? They're better. Feel like he gay all straight. My nigga is gay as fuck.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Every time dude.

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  Why you say that? Look how this nigga is standing.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Heated.

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  That nigga popped up like a little bad bitch. You gay all straight. I'm straight as a pencil. Why you think other people gonna think that? Hell yeah. You feel like he gay all straight?

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Damn, what the?

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  He could be bisexual.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Fat.

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  Why you say that? Everybody bisexual. Nah, you gay all straight. I don't care what the fuck they think, they can kiss my ass. Feel like he gay all straight. Gay as fuck. Why you say that? Fuck is he wearing nigga?

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Who is that, Jon Jones? Who is this?

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  You gay all straight.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  That's Bones Jones. Is that Indiana John Jones dude? Who the fuck is that?

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  George Jones, Jones. That's good, that's good, yeah.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  That's a pretty cool, that was a cool outfit. I'd like to get to a place in comfortability and metaphysical wellness where I could wear a chain around my neck with a lock on it.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  I think you could do it dude.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  I think I could pull it off. I used to paint my nails and then I would go to rehab like a week later.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  It happened several times in my adult life. I would paint my nails like, you know, twirling my hair, talking on a corded phone, like paint my nails. And then I'd wake up like a couple of days later and I was like, I need help.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  I was like, I'm being fashion forward, but I am turning the clock back.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Oh, you're a fucking just a little leap year, you were.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  I'm a leap year baby. I have Benjamin Button's disease, but I'm right in the middle between young and old, so I'm normal. Brutal.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  So sobriety, so you, did you, uh, can I ask you something about it? How's it been? Was there like a, a point that you got, was it like drinking was it? Or was it just like you were just feeling like disconnected from your own life? And, and congrats on, uh, having the wherewithal to like try something new. Like even just to be like, okay, I've been in Austin, this is what's going on. I'm gonna try something new. It's some, it's so hard to come to that conclusion for some of us.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, um, I've struggled with those things since I was a kid and I would have long stretches of sobriety. When I was younger, it would be alcohol and then, um, where I grew up in Georgia, um, it was, I was in high school during like the Purdue Pharmaceuticals, like that, all that stuff.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  So a lot of my friends, um, got addicted to like OxyContin and stuff like that. So yeah, so like that, I was exposed to, um, drug use like that when I was younger. So, um, off and on and mostly I would sometimes go back to it when I couldn't deal with pressure. You know, there's a lot of excuses for things like that.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  But yeah, it had gotten to a point where I no longer wanted to do comedy. I no longer wanted to really do anything. I just felt like, almost not like I had wasted my life, cause I love what I do and I, I really like getting to meet people and I love making people happy. But it got to be too much when coupled with, um, a habit that I had developed of various, um, drugs and alcohol and things like that.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  Where I was like, something has to change, like something has to change.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Right, so you got to that point, something has to change.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had resigned myself to the idea of a certain death and that did not scare me. It would have been, um, I looked at it at that point as some sort of like welcomed relief. Like I had gone past the point of anyone being able to help me or me being able to help myself. And then when I did reach out and I did seek some help for that stuff, um, I realized that that's not what I wanted at all. What I really wanted was to figure out a better way to live. That I really just wanted to have some peace in my life that I knew, even in the throes of it, was not being given to me by drugs and alcohol. It was the opposite of that. It was making my life a thousand times worse.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  And by, um, yeah, I've been able to cut so much guff out of my life, so much guff in slime. And I'm able to look around today and I know that, uh, I don't have any, I don't live in shame about my life. I don't do, I don't say things to thing, I don't say things to people I don't mean. I don't hurt my friends' feelings. I can be a better partner. I can kick a soccer ball. I can.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  It's basically, it was soccer ball based. So I looked around and I was like, you know what? This house is missing. Soccer ball and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I said, you're in no condition to kick a soccer ball. You're gonna hurt somebody.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  But it's just really basic things, you know? I wanted to be involved again. I wanted to be in the stream of, of life and.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  It's been so beautiful. I'm just so happy and I don't think it's a temporary happiness. I think it'll be sustained if I continue to work on myself.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  I know, huh?

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Are you able to look and see, uh, congrats too, man? I know it's not like a thing that's like, is a congrats thing, but it's a, it, when you think about our world, to take a break from anything.

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  And make a commitment to take a break from something and do it, it's tough.

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  It's tough for any of us. We're all, we're, there's so many ways to get addicted to distract ourselves from us.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's a, it's a diseased thinking of I'm constantly, cause you know, I can do all kinds of things. I would spend too much money. I would, I would gamble. I would do these things that on paper seem like a lesser thing than the usage of substances. And they are, but it's all just a symptom of a greater, I want to distract myself and I, and I want instant thrills that are followed by continuing to chase that thing. Yeah.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  What team were you betting on too? Can I tell you when I bet on it?

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  I never did sports betting and I didn't lose, I don't think I have like a gambling addiction, but I would, I would go and, I don't gamble anymore, I'll say that.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Oh, bet.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  I would do slots.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  Oh, you do slots, yeah?

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  I do some spins.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Five dollar spin, have a slap at the pokies.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  Yes, oh.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  I would love dude, sometimes I like, this time I didn't, I was just in Las Vegas, but I would, I'd like to slip down there at night when nobody would be around and I'd sit there and play some slots. Just put in 20 bucks, 40 bucks, you know, and just fucking try to get a little bit of money out of China. You know, I'd yell at the machine, I'd be like, we're gonna fucking get your cash.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  We're coming Beijing.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're coming dude.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Congratulations.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Pork boy.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. You've popped the pig big. That, that's, it's so funny, cause it will give you, and this is not a bit, heaven forbid I do a bit, but it'll be like congratention. Congribidibus. You've won, you've been awarded dollar. Like you won a dollar, like a singular Judeo-Christian dollar.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  And they sound it out, it takes for, and you're like, fuck dude, if I would have just called in a, even like just fucking taken a call on a phone and asked them for $2, I would have made more money.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Doing something else.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  You've been accepted into the winner's circle. Press B to trust. Press B and then it's $1.47 and you're like, okay, I'm betting $5, you just told me I've lost money.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's like, oh, you've won the deceased sibling round. We're gonna bring back Anna Marie. And you're like, oh my god.

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  My sister's back.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  My sister's back.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  But it's so funny, it'll like.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  But that's how it's gonna get, don't you see where we're going?

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  I know. That's, I mean, that's gonna be in our freaking textbooks one of these days.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  You're gonna have to go to the win or encore, or you're gonna have to go to Dragon's Beard or whatever the casinos will be named in, you know? Or [bleep] it's realm or whatever they're called, right? You're gonna have to go to some of these places, sorry.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  To go to the Circus of Life.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Or Trump's Nuts or whatever the, whatever the casinos are gonna be called, you're gonna have to go there in the Biden's Oculus, right? You're gonna have to go there and they'll be like, you know, get four spins and you'll see your father, you know? And that's really what it's gonna be like.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  Yes, and you have to keep playing. You're, you will use your social credit score to go have a round of spins at John Carpenter's cigarette burns. And you will be lucky to walk out with a talisman. Or an amulet of any repute.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  It's brutal and it's so, I always just think it's so funny how they'll be like, gar, gar, gar, gar, gar. You've awarded the pig some hooves and then they'll just like print you out one US dollar, yeah.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  What do we, I mean, where do we go from here, you know?

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Um, what are some things that you feel like? Cause like I'll go to meetings, I'm gonna go to a meeting probably whenever I get done with this today. Um, what are some things that the meetings do for you? Do you notice something like that over time?

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, um.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Like going to recovery meetings?

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot of 12 step meetings out there, you know?

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Sure, I went this morning in Nashville. I like to, um.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  Did you go to that 7:30 meeting over there?

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  No, it was at, um, a sober living in Nashville.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  At 11:30. But at, at a very base level, what I can say is that I have never ever walked out of one feeling worse than I was walking in. I will always, even if there's two other people in there, and I've been to plenty of things like that, um, newer meetings or smaller towns. Um, I'll always hear something that relates to my life or relates to how I want to have my life be. So it's just, I like to meet random people too. It's like, makes me uncomfortable.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  And then when I leave, I feel like I did something good, cause I know it's good for me. And I know I need it. Yeah.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it kinda cultivates a part of you that you can't even access. Like, I think for me, like I share in meetings, I try to share, um, most of the meetings that I go to. And I always wonder kinda why it's like, uh.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  And then I was like, oh, well, when I was a kid, I didn't, there wasn't like a place that was safe where I could speak up, right? Like at our house, you couldn't speak up, nobody cared how you felt, there wasn't even, I didn't even know I had any feelings, except that I wasn't feeling good.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  And it was like nobody, and that was our whole like system at home.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  And so like sometimes when I go in there, it's like, well, this is a place that's safe enough where I can speak up, even if I don't know exactly what I'm gonna say, or how exactly I feel. It gives me like a little bit of space to explore it. So it's almost like, sometimes I feel like, um, it's almost like the kid me, or the younger me that's in there, that's kind of like, I mean, it's an adult me, but it kinda like, um, it helps me honor a little bit of that. Like here's this younger me that never got to speak up. So in here today, I'm gonna sit here with you, and we're gonna, you know what I'm saying? We're gonna speak up for ourselves.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that is really beautiful. I can definitely, um, identify with some of those, um, sentiments from feeling like a bit voiceless when I was younger. Yeah, it is, it's so nice to, anytime I'd, I'll try to like prepare something smart to say, it'll be like you're a bumble, you're a troglodyte. Like I'm a mute, I'm a mute deaf, speechless, but I'm like, it's summer's, summer's hard. And they're like, what the, who, what are you? Not even who are you, what are you, and why? The big three. Um.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Dude, when somebody will share something in there, and that you've been wanting to say your whole life, or here.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  And you'll finally hear it, or, or, and you're like, oh, I feel like a part of me, like, well, almost like the locks will like turn.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  And a new door will open.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you feel like a weight has been, I can't even describe how it feels, like really get involved in that stuff, and

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  it, it's so crazy. It makes you feel like, uh, you know, I'm of the belief that the universe is all mental, and it unfolds just for us, you know, how can it not? Our life experiences are designated and interpreted solely for us, and when I'm in there, almost every time, something will happen that's so kismet, or a synchronicity, and you'll hear something you were just thinking about. Or something that's upcoming, you've been worried about, and you're like, what are the odds of that? And it happens almost every day. Where you're like, I'm on the right path, you know? When you do the right things, you get the right things. It might not be the things you want, but the things that you need at least.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  And the little things you hear in there, man.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  The little things like, uh, contrary action, like there's a lot of times I won't, if I don't wanna do something. Unless it's for like a reason where there's like safety concern or something like that, then I need to consider trying to go do it, like, I don't really need to do this yoga, I don't really need to go and like, walk over to my neighbors and drop this off, just sort of, it's, cause there's a darker part of me that wants to me to be by myself, that wants me to stay like isolated and sit and think and ponder about everything. And, and just learning those things, and eventually, I have to learn things a lot, right?

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  I have to learn things a lot. It's like my forgetter is really big. It's like, it's almost like when I wake up in the morning, it's like, there's a part of me that's forgotten if people care about me, that's forgotten if I care about me, you know, it's not exact, but there's a lot of like, somebody comes in almost at night and cleans like the dry erase boards, you know?

• 1:20:27Speaker 02

  I need to be reminded that I matter, and at a bigger level, other people matter more than me.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Other people matters, you know, I was the, I was the main actor in my life for so long, and it was all how things were affecting me and what I was doing, and it's so nice to yeah, just genuinely give a shit about other people.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Dude, some of the my best moments are my moments are my favorites. Or if I wake up and my thought, my first thought about somebody else, it's almost like, God, thank you. Or if I'm just driving, I have to remember something somebody had said yesterday, like, oh, I'm gonna call them and check them on them about that. Or something somebody cared about, and I was like, oh, let me see how that played out for them. The more of those I get, like, the better it feels. Um.

• 1:21:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, cause we're meant, we're meant to have community. And my mind does the same thing. It'll, it's so much easier, there's a million other things I could be doing for an hour and a day than doing that. But when I'm alone, if I make an excuse like that, I'll make another excuse, you know?

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:28Speaker 02

  And I'll make another excuse, and it may not lead to drug use, but it definitely will lead to me having a sadder life. And at the very least, I don't want that.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's so.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  And it's like, I just remember people care about me. I'll walk into a meeting and I'm like, oh, yeah.

• 1:21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Dude, I remember, and it's not that I forgot him or anything, but it's just like, I have to have this thing replenished.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  That's like, yes, your heart works, you work, you're okay, things are okay, there might be problems, but they're not that big, and everything's gonna be okay. It's almost like you just like, I don't know, it's like, it definitely is like church, some people are like, do you go to church? And it's like, I don't go to church every week, but in a way, I go to church four or five times a week.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  You know? And you feel it.

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  And you feel it.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like I walk out of there, I'm like, okay, if I'm, if this, like, I mean, there's some days when it's rough, if somebody's sitting on their phone next to me the whole meeting, dude.

• 1:22:22Speaker 02

  If there's a kid running around, God forbid.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  A little Christmas kid. You can tell it's like a New Year's Eve, baby.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he's like, my birthday's coming up or whatever, and I'm like.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  No, it's not.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  No, it's not, we're in July, I can tell you're a New Year's Eve baby. Get the hell out of here with your holiday spirits.

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  But no, man, I think that community is great. What do you think if there's somebody who's scared to try to go to a first meeting, you know, I'll have friends that'll ask me sometimes about like, or what do you say to somebody who's thinking like, maybe I might be struggling with this, you know?

• 1:22:51Speaker 02

  Sure, um, well, something that I go back to is that it's just so nice to be around people who I, I, I, you know, there's a saying, uh, the saying of a terminal uniqueness that makes people continue to struggle, that we think that we're so different in our suffering. That we're put on this earth just to suffer, and who am I to say if that's not the case? But everything you've been through has meaning. And of course it has meaning to you, but it doesn't really have that much helpful meaning to you, the things that you've gone through that are really bad. Ruminating on that does not help, but when you put it out of you,

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  and, and you see that it helps someone, even just for a day, like being around people who also hurt that way, it's just an incredible feeling. It's not a chore, it's not something you have to go do. It's something I look forward to doing.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Cause it's so nice to look around and go, oh my God, I'm not this little freak.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:43Speaker 02

  I'm not this little guy that God forgot, you know? I'm someone that has purpose. Even if it's just for today, I can have a purpose of hanging out with these people, and I know that when I'm in there, I feel better, just for, even if it's just for that hour, even if I leave and I get back and I feel like shit again, and I'm going a little crazy, and I'm riffing a little too hard about the wrong things in my little brain.

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  It's a safe place, like, and I hate to use that term, but it's, you know, places like that are just, it's somewhere completely free of judgment. It's so beautiful.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  It's so beautiful, and there's nothing else like it.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy sometimes, some people are like, hey, do we come do this? Like, nah, I don't know if I'm doing that, you know, I don't know if I'm driving over to meet you at a, uh, Whataburger or something, you know, just because they're popping off, cause it's new or whatever, and the seats are clean or whatever, still.

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not going animal style, you can't make me.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you'd be like, hey, you wanna drive 20 minutes across town to go to like this 11:30 AM like meeting, it's gonna be mostly older folks in this church, and I'm like, dude, yeah.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  That shit sounds popping.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  I dig wisdom.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  Yes, dude.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  Dude, I love to talk to some old farmer. Ooh wee! I get off on talking to an old farmer.

• 1:24:52Speaker 01

  Our plants gotta age. You're like, I don't know if that's what happened. He goes, when my arm's crying, I gotta feed it. When that baby's crying, I gotta feed it.

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  And he go, hell yeah.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Don't come on my back and tell me it's raining, you know, shit like that, you're like, yeah. People always have crazy quotes. Um, but no, man, it's definitely like, I don't know, and it's there for you, it's like if you, if you have a tough time, if you leave, if you come in or out, the meetings are there, you can go back, right?

• 1:25:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's just so nice to like, something that really sat with me this last go around when I was trying to get my life together again, is just the simple thought that I don't have to live like that. Like whatever is making me feel like my life is for want of a better term, escalating towards some terminal velocity, where I've had so many times in my life where I feel like, this is gonna end bad. I'm, either I'm, you know, I'm working too much, or I'm worried about the wrong shit, or I'm, you know, I'm using again, and I know it's gonna end bad. And to know, I don't ever have to feel like that again, cause I know that I'm in control of my emotions now, and it's

• 1:26:04Speaker 02

  so great. I like to let yourself have peace. It's so hard. It's like the hardest thing in life.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, why is it hard, man?

• 1:26:09Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  That's such a fascinating thing. I have never heard it sound like that, to let yourself have peace. Yeah, like, I don't wanna let myself have peace, man. It's like. Or I don't know if I don't think, or I'm not saying I don't, but it's like, that would be the like, yeah, I don't, do I not deserve, like, what is that?

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  I, I don't know if it's something, just the way that we're wired, where.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Cause that's it, that's some of the wiring is right there. Why wouldn't I let myself have peace? I have friends that are, that like, and I've struggled, I've had some tough years over, you know, over the years for sure and, uh, but I've had some friends that, uh, won't, won't, won't get close to it, you know?

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Won't try to get close to the fire. They wanna just keep, keep trying to do it.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  What's familiar?

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  It's familiar and there's a thing of like, I'll figure this out. You know what I'm saying? Like,

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Like.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  I've gotten myself this far.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Right. And the world feels that you, I don't know, when I was younger, I put a chip on my, sort of like the world was an enemy.

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna figure this out and watch me. And then the worst part is if you have some successes in your life or things that go kind of your way, it's hard to realize that like something, you know?

• 1:27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Cause then you feel like, oh, well, I'm doing, I'll figure this out too.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Cause I did this for myself. I, I uprooted myself. I made this happen. But then also, I've made a lot of the bad things in my life happen. You know, drinking tuss, walking down the road, having a little slip and slide.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  Karmically speaking, I'm a karmic patsy. I'm a, I'm a charlatan of redemption. I'm a tuss man.

• 1:27:38Speaker 01

  Oh dude, you're the Jack Ruby.

• 1:27:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  Of that realm.

• 1:27:42Speaker 02

  I am Jack Ruby and I am Nikola Tesla and we are building a free energy circuit that Edison will shut down.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, it's, but that ego is so good. Cause yeah, it's like, no one really helped me become a comedian. No one taught me how to tell jokes. No one, you know, I slept in my car for a long time. I, I spent my whole life working on this thing. So when we're able to turn that into something that is working, of course, I think we're apt to believe like, oh, I'll turn this around too, by myself. That's just, you know, we both know that's not the case. It's not possible.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's just willpower. It's vibrant willpower. I'm amazed at the willpower sometimes of people that struggle. Like I have friends whose parents have, are out on the streets and, or have been struggling for 20, 30 years, you know, and, uh,

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  and I'm sure some of them, like, some of them have even asked me, why do you think they say, what's going, you know, it's like, I don't know. But you just try to talk with somebody about that stuff and it's just the willpower of, of some, of, of alcohol or of people that are in recovery of alcoholism, of alcoholics. It's, man, it's strong. It's like, I'll figure this out. Everything, I'll turn this around. Or then sometimes I bet you just get, uh, you built, you just get trapped in shame and then you just wanna stay away from your life because you feel like, I don't wanna go around these people because I'll only make things worse for them. That's gotta be kind of a crazy trap.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that you're too far gone and you're like radioactive.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:29:16Speaker 02

  That people, you feel like people will be better off without you, which is such a dangerous thought that is never, ever, ever, ever true. Yeah.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's never true. Um, you've, you've, uh, you've talked about the occult a lot, right? And I feel like you've gone around the, up and down those realms. You've referenced, you low key, your closet occult, people say, okay. Occult adjacent.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  No, I, I've read about all kinds of religions and stuff. So sometimes I'll throw, I'll throw some buzzwords out there. I do like to.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Will you do that?

• 1:29:46Speaker 02

  I'll throw some buzzies. I'll do a little buzz, I'll catch in a little, in a little fly trap.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  You're the Oral Hersheiser of throwing buzzwords out there.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. Casey Orangeall, Casey Orenthal Jameson from Raka.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  No, Oral Hersheiser.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Sorry, he's a, I think he was one of the best pitchers before you were born. Dude, when I was a kid, like the best pitcher was kind of an old white dude. It was like, okay.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  Randy Johnson?

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Uh huh. It was before him. It was like Randy Johnson's daddy or whatever. And.

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  Candy Johnson.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, bring up Oral Hersheiser. There he is, dude. He's a legend. Yeah, him and Walker Bueller actually look alike, but from Buffalo, New York, man, he's a legend. But he was a legend when I was growing up, you know, it was just like a white guy that was, that was able to do it. And then things got, uh, Latino and just more diverse. Um, but what I was gonna ask you, yeah, where do you feel like we're at spiritually as, as a people right now? Do you, do you feel like we're in a tough spot? Do you see a, a different future for us? Like, what do you really see? Having somebody who like, kind of is willing to kind of massage the crystal ball of different realms.

• 1:30:49Speaker 02

  That is a interesting question and, uh, uh, happy to be here, but it, it, that's, that's difficult. I think for me, as part of, uh, a better life that I've tried to live, um, yeah, I love reading about different kinds of, uh, positive philosophy from antiquity. So, you know, Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, um, up through different, I've had different times in my life where I was a more or less a believer of existential nihilism, that life had no purpose, that we were put into this world simply, um, from a dying god. Sort of a gnostic worldview of, um, we don't have any purpose because we will ultimately die. Right?

• 1:31:33Speaker 02

  So in doing so, the end justifies the means in the sense of whatever we end up doing, it does not serve any sort of greater good. But I believe the opposite of that today. Um, I think as human beings and, uh, these thoughts are sort of a mishmash of various other things. Mostly the tenants of hermeticism and some sort of, uh, cabal. Cabala, not kabbalic, uh, not like a cult, but the universe is always in motion and we're a part of the universe, right? So I know that my life serves a greater good today and I also know that I can be a driving force in my life while also knowing that I can only drive so far.

• 1:32:16Speaker 02

  So all I can choose to do is, as they say, the right hand path of doing the right thing and the next right thing. And, um, if I do do something wrong to a friend, small things, the mistakes I make today are smaller. I can be snippy. I can be rude. I can be not emotionally available. Um, I can immediately act to correct that. Right? So it's some iteration of karma and some iteration of the understanding that life is suffering, you know, it hurts to know that we're alive and to know that we're worth more than will be given. Um,

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:32:53Speaker 02

  But.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Dang, that's crazy. I never heard that before.

• 1:32:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, people, the meaning of life is just, it's the small things. It's to mean something in a moment by moment basis and to do things without the purpose of distraction. So.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  It's so much easier, you know, we've both struggled with drugs and alcohol to, to turn that knob off. But I'm gonna have to wake up again tomorrow. And that's the thing about like developing a drug habit is like, I would always be so furious when I would wake up. And I go, oh my God, I have to do this again. I can't believe I have to do this again. But I'm of the belief that we were all created so the universe can understand itself, you know? So I'm simply a, a cog in a, in such a greater machine of, I only exist because at the end of my timeline, I served some greater purpose, you know, for the creator of the universe, whatever you wanna call that. Um.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  And who do you hope it is? Like, say if it is like a, and I think that's beautifully put, dude. I really do. That's pretty cool, man.

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  You're an eloquent speaker. You're gonna be a great, uh, screenwriter.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  Thank you for saying that.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  It's gonna be exciting, man. I admire the fact that you're willing to, to do something that you want to do, right? Like, I think it's easy to get trapped in like, there's popularity here, there's some money here, there's reward, there's like ego reward here. But it's just really like what I really wanna do. Like sometimes I really wanna just focus on learning Spanish and be a writer, right? Some of those, those are things that I think, right?

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  That gives me self-worth.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Right. And, but then you get caught in different things and sometimes they're blessings and it's great paths and stuff, but it's like, yeah, do we reward like that? You know, do we reward that thing inside of us that also we, that, that was the reason maybe we started out wanting to be creative? Like, sometimes you'll get on such a path that you never get back to those things sometimes.

• 1:34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it's been so nice to, to bring it back to comedy in any capacity, to do things just for fun. To go do an open mic at like a hot dog stand.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  It's like, I used to love stuff like that. I used to live for shit like that. And then when you get caught up in all the numbers and how are the tickets and what, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Be, be, be, be, be. When you get caught up in all that, wah, wah, wah, wah, it, some of it gets lost.

• 1:35:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:11Speaker 02

  And I'm tired of losing stuff, you know? I needed to trim some of my hedges, right? Tall poppy syndrome. I needed to cut down some of these egotistical parts of my life that I know don't serve me. And then it's a daily thing of figuring out, you know, chipping away at the block of happiness and trying to get a firmer picture of what that looks like. Yeah.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:31Speaker 02

  Hard to say.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  I think well said. Um, in the end, when we get there, do you, and it's, and we realize, oh, this was just a big masked singer, right?

• 1:35:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:35:44Speaker 01

  And they take it, they take the mask off. Who do you hope it is?

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  Bill Paxton. Yeah.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  Who played for the Bulls?

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Is that Bill Paxton?

• 1:35:52Speaker 02

  That's John Paxton.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  John Pax.

• 1:35:54Speaker 02

  So, uh, Bill Paxton, I'm an American actor who was in Aliens and, um, Frailty, um, just famed character actor, Bill Paxton, who did have leading man potential and was sometimes given the option to exercise that. Um, died in a medic.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Died in a medical malpractice incident and he, um, he once told. Yeah, he got malpractice to have that.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that's what happened with Kanye's mom. It was him and Kanye's mom then maybe.

• 1:36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they were doing like a dual sutra, surgery or something. They were doing sutures or something. It was a suture day.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it's probably one of those new, cause they're, I know that insurance is offering, if you both get surgery on the same day with someone you don't know. It's like, I, it's like, um.

• 1:36:37Speaker 02

  Cancels out.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  Then yeah, well, it's cheaper.

• 1:36:40Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, it's half as much for twice the people. So.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  It's a new, and they're doing that new drive by surgery where some guy just reaches out of like a.

• 1:36:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  Ow.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  But yeah.

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  There's a lot of great offers coming from the gods above.

• 1:36:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, sure. We're simply vessels, man.

• 1:36:59Speaker 01

  Bill Paxton died in February 2017 from a fatal stroke. Oh, man. 11 days after undergoing heart surgery, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing the surgeon and hospital of medical malpractice alleging the doctor used an unnecessary unconventional technique.

• 1:37:13Speaker 02

  Cedars-Sinai.

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  Uh-uh.

• 1:37:16Speaker 02

  Full circle riff. Put a bow on it.

• 1:37:19Speaker 01

  AKA Cedars Cyanide, a lot of people call it, you know, which is another. And they are coming out with a yogurt, I've heard, so that's good.

• 1:37:27Speaker 02

  We are doing squatters rights on that riff. We are here to cut the ribbon on that riff.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Before you go, Casey, uh, the riffs, you are, you're, there's, you're, you're a different instrument, man. You're a different instrument. How do you best set yourself up for the ability to riff? Do you have to do a certain sequence of events before you go on? Like, and not to put a lot of pressure on yourself, but have you noticed certain things lead to better tuning for yourself as an instrument?

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good question.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  Without giving away my entire process, which I am not even capable of replicating, which really gets me in a bind.

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  When I can't even do my own act and I'm the one who does it, yikes. I like to do, I like to have some tent poles. So I'll go out there, I'll cause a bit of a fuss. I'll cause a fuss. And I like to, I'll say this, I like to go up there and sing because it gets me out of my head. So I learned a long time ago, the most embarrassing thing you could ever do is try to sing genuinely, like in a circumstance that does not call for it. So I'll go up there, I'll do a little grunge number. Woo-hoo, do a little Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard. And I can feel super embarrassed. And then I go, well, surely nothing for the rest of this hour will feel like how that just felt.

• 1:38:46Speaker 02

  So that allows me to just sort of peel the mask off and then do a big Scooby Doo reveal of me to myself in the mirror. And then I do a quick wink and I will have some tent poles. So I'll try to do three jokes that I know I'm gonna tell. So before I go up and I do my hour, I'll look at, I'll know three jokes that I'm gonna say.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:39:08Speaker 02

  And then I'll do joke. Joke.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:12Speaker 02

  Joke. And then from there, hopefully I've gotten about 10 to 20 laughs at this point. And if you extrapolate, let's say the room's 500, which is bigger than rooms that I do. Let's say in a perfect world, I'm headlining 500 seaters. If I get 10 laughs out of 500, I go, ooh, I only got 490 to go. So that, so that, I'll do a couple of jokes up top and that'll give me the confidence I need to string it all together.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. But, you know, we're, but I have like a thousand half-sentence jokes, so.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:39:49Speaker 02

  If I ever lose my train of thought, I'll just like hit them with, I'll just do a quick stinky. So that's like an example of a joke.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, you're like an Easter basket that has matches in it, dude. You're like, there's just something going on.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  Careful with the plastic wrap, you'll set the whole thing off.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Canterbury and Diesel. It's just, yeah, there's something just so charming about, about your presentation of yourself.

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  Thanks for saying that.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  It's the truth.

• 1:40:17Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  I hope you feel that in a, in a place where we need to feel things are important. And not, but I just think like, yeah, I don't know. I don't mean that because I'm saying that to you, but I just think, yeah, there's a, I don't know. It's a great thing to watch. You're a great thing to watch, Casey Rocket.

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  Thanks. Me and my friends watched No Offense on Netflix, your special.

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:40:40Speaker 02

  Right when I started comedy and it was very formative for me. And I thought it was so funny and I'd never seen anything like it. So I really appreciate you saying that. Thanks, man.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Well, you bet, dude. I'm glad that we've been able to communicate, man. I hope we can do it more. I think I'm gonna try to come out there tonight.

• 1:40:54Speaker 02

  You should. Come riff or at least come hang out. You don't have to riff, but come hang out, it'd be so fun.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  It would be so fun, dude. I think I'm gonna go up because I think it's probably what I need to do, counter reaction.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  It's, my crowds and I'm sure your crowds too, but they're so, they would just be so happy to see you. You'll have so much fun.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Speaker 02

  It'd be great.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:41:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  All right, I'm coming then.

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  What time's your show at?

• 1:41:16Speaker 02

  7 o'clock.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  It is?

• 1:41:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  Okay. I was supposed to go to a 6:30 meeting, but maybe I can find a 6:00, maybe I can go to one after.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  Casey Rocket, you got some tour dates coming up?

• 1:41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm on the road. Uh, yeah, CaseyRocketComedy.com.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Up in Liberty Township over there, Cincinnati. That's a good place over there.

• 1:41:36Speaker 02

  Doing some more Funny Bones this year. One thing I want to plug, I have an hour of my stand-up on my Patreon.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:41:44Speaker 02

  It's $6 and all the money goes to harm reduction programs in Chicago. So community outreach, clean needles, harm reduction, all kinds of good stuff that helps people get, help, uh, people get the help that they need. So yeah, my Patreon's on there and, um, if you feel like doing that, just know that all that money goes to charity. So, yeah.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  That's awesome, man. Congrats on all the success, dude. Thanks for talking with us. They had Liberty Township. What were some of the other ones? Let me just rattle them off real quick. Columbus, Ohio. I love being in Ohio, dude. St. Petersburg, Florida, Asheville, North Carolina. Have you been there?

• 1:42:20Speaker 02

  I have not done the Orange Peel yet, but I've been to Asheville. It's so cool.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  So cool, dude. Baltimore, Maryland. Got offered a three, uh, threesome there by, uh, older mixed couple. One of them wearing, who I think was wearing an Ed Reed jersey. We got Chicago back at Zany's, Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Louisville, a lot of places. You can check, uh, check him out online on his website, CaseyRocket.com?

• 1:42:45Speaker 02

  CaseyRocketComedy.com.

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  CaseyRocketComedy.com.

• 1:42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you, guys.

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  And, uh, and before you go, I just want to get this note in for, uh, viewers. No, the Jasper Mall in Jasper, Alabama has not officially closed. It is still operating though in a very reduced and dead mall state.

• 1:43:04Speaker 02

  Dead mall state. That's what's gonna happen when the nuclear family collapses.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Not to be confused with Dead Mall 5, actually, who I think is still doing well. Can you bring up Dead Mall?

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's one of Marshmello's, um, aliases. So it's like Dead Mouse. Yeah, he's in the, he's, what do they call it? The Marshmallow Extended Universe, so.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:24Speaker 02

  Oh my God, face reveal. Okay, spoiler alert.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Didn't know that was him. I hope he's doing good. Anyway, um, cool, man. Dude, thank you so much for your time. Have a great show tonight. I'm gonna come up there and, uh, I'll figure it out when I get up there.

• 1:43:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wouldn't have it any other way. And I'll, and I'll say one more thing.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  There's more to life than riffs, but there's not more to riffs than life.

• 1:43:49Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:43:52Speaker 02

  See you at the mall.