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

Dusty Slay, welcome to the show, man.

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

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

Yeah, thank you.

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

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

Good.

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

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

Yeah, my friend John Crist.

Oh yeah, you guys are buddies?

Yeah.

I love that dude.

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

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

He's doing great. He's getting married and he's—

He's getting married?

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

That's awesome.

Every time I see him, he looks happy.

I'm happy to hear that, man. Well, let me give you an introduction here. Dusty Slay, you're a stand-up comedian known for your Southern working-class style of observational humor and are currently on the Neighborhood Guy tour, making stops in theaters all across the country. You grew up in a trailer park in Opelika, Alabama, and spent years working regular jobs before building a career in stand-up that has taken you to The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Comedy Central, and Netflix, where you released Workin' Man in 2024 and Wet Heat in 2025. You made your Grand Ole Opry debut in 2019 and have since become a regular performer on the Opry stage. You're also the author of We're Having a Good Time and Other Stories, sharing stories stories from your life and career in comedy, and we're just here having a good time.

That's right, we're having a good time.

Right on, man.

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

So I got, uh, a couple of things to knock out here real quick. Everybody starts off getting a gift. Oh, all right. Vigilance Elite gummy bears.

All right.

Made in the USA.

I love that.

Thank you. No cannabis.

All right, great.

It's handy.

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

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

You know, I— when I was doing comedy early on, I was— I would do, uh, some dirtier jokes. And this friend of mine who's— I don't think would say he's a Christian, I was talking to him and we were talking about jokes that I was gonna do that night, and I go, well, I don't wanna do this joke, I don't wanna do this joke because I have some people from my church coming to the show. And he said to me, he goes, it's interesting that you care about what people from the church think, but you don't care about what God thinks. And I go, whoa! And I don't know if he was just being funny with me, and I think he was, But I was like, wow, that really hits in a way where I'm like, yeah, I mean, if I'm so worried about what they think about me, then why would I not just clean it up altogether? Now, not that all of my jokes, you know, I talk about all sorts of things, weed and drinking stories and this and that, and I don't know that it all honors God, but I try my best to be funny without being crude.

When did that happen?

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

Oh, wow. It happened a while ago.

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

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

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

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

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

Do you, do you swear at all?

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

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

What, not to cuss?

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

Oh yeah.

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

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

Oh man, how did you quit? I mean, I've been, I mean, it's, I've been, well, my everyday unfiltered since 12, I'm in my 40s now, probably earlier than 12.

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

That's how I am.

Yeah, I just—

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

Yeah.

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

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

Mm-hmm.

If you're not, if you never recognize you're doing something wrong— and not that cussing is necessarily wrong, but you recognize it, and then, and then change happens.

Yeah.

That's what I think for me is it's like when I realized that I wanted to be a cleaner comic, it didn't happen overnight because my mind already— like, I wasn't thinking that way. I was still thinking of dirty jokes. But once you go, oh, okay, well, I don't wanna— I don't wanna do that joke because I'm not trying to do that, then slowly you start to— you just don't think that way anymore. And then, you know, I still have some that pop up. Zany's here in town has a dark and dirty comedy night. And I did that show one night, and I was doing my dirty jokes, but I still, you know, I seem like the Christian guy trying to do dirty jokes.

Gotcha.

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

Gotcha.

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

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

I quit in 2012, uh, late January 2012.

Right on. How was— how did you, uh— was that easy for you? Was that tough?

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

Mm-hmm.

And I go, oh, there's, there's a couple of guys in here that are like me, where I'm fine really to not drink, but the moment I have a beer, then I'm like, I'm like, it's like something comes over me and I'm fueled and I'm ready to go. And then I can just drink all night. And I, you know, I've, I've had throw-up moments, but I'm more of a blackout guy. It's like my body just holds it all in and my mind shuts down. My eyes get glossy and there's a different person in there.

That's how I was. So you're what, 14 years? Is it 14 years?

Yeah, 14 years.

I'm 4 years. And, uh, Yeah, that's how I was. Blackout.

Yeah, my buddy used to—

You ever seen a video of yourself blacked out?

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

Yeah, I know, man. I know.

Thankfully it wasn't someone else's video showing me, you know, that showed up on the internet. Yeah, I'm very blessed to have done all my drinking before the internet became too popular.

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

I grew up in a town called Opelika, Alabama, which is, uh, next to Auburn University if, uh, you know, people are familiar with the SEC. But I, you know, I was, you know, my parents divorced when I was 2 or 3. I always said 2, and then later after I did 2 jokes on 2 different albums. My dad told me it was 3, so I go, I don't know, I don't know why you let me keep doing those jokes. But, uh, but, uh, so I lived in, uh, Chambers County, Alabama, a town called Lafette, Alabama, when I— until I was 2 or 3. And then my parents divorced and I moved to Opelika. And, uh, and then I went back and forth, you know.

Close with both of them?

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

Right on. What were you into as a kid?

I, I always like— I was always a, you know, a bit of an artist. I loved drawing. Uh, I, you know, and I, I almost feel bad for kids today because when I was a kid, I drew because I was just bored out of my mind. My, my mom would take me to my grandmother's house. My grandmother lived uh, you know, in Alabama. She had no air conditioner, she had no cable, and we just sat down there. My grandmother crocheted. It'd be, you know, 100 degrees in the house. She's got an afghan on her lap and she's crocheting away. My mom works third shift, so she's passed out down there, and I'm just sitting there with my grandmother. And I, you know, I've, I've made many jokes about my grandmother being mean, but I— she just was not nice, you know. She grew up in the Great Depression. She lost, uh, I think, uh, she lost her first husband maybe in World War II. And then, you know, and then my grandfather, I think, was injured in training. So, you know, they just grew up poor. And she was— and then he— my grandfather died at 65 when I was, you know, 4 or 5.

So, you know, she had a hard life and she just wasn't nice. This niceness wasn't in her. So I'm just hanging out with an oscillating fan occasionally hitting me, giving me a little relief. And I'm sitting on her floor drawing pictures, 'cause that's all I have to do. And I became very creative, I think, because of that.

Right on. Why did your parents get divorced?

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

I read something about a car in a pond. Do you think maybe that could be a potential reason?

Could be too. You know, my parents had a— they said that was the— my dad said it was the newest car he had ever owned. And back then there were no car seats. At least that's what they tell me. I wasn't in one. I was 21 months old. Uh, it was a bench seat car with a, the gear shifter on the throttle or on the, on the dash, you know. And, uh, my mom says she checked the mail and needed to run it inside, so she just pulled the car up next to the house. My dad lives a little on a hill, and while she was in there, I walked over. I don't remember, this is what they tell me. I walk over, I pulled it into drive. or at least neutral. And those cars, those old cars, they go. And the car started going. I drove it down. I crashed through a fence, apparently turned it, went through between 2 trees where the door was still open, and it closed the door where they said if I'd have hit one of those trees, I probably would have smashed into the windshield.

Yeah.

And then I went through another fence and crashed into a pond. My mom can't swim. She goes running down the hill. She catches— she goes around to the driver's side. It's already sank down enough to where she can't open the door. She goes around to the passenger side. It won't open. And then she's able to get the back door open as the car's sinking, and she grabs me out of the front seat.

Wow.

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

Wow. And you were how old?

21 months old.

Geez.

My mom said I never cried. That said, when she opened the door, I go, Mama, you know? And I'm just like, oh my God, I'm just, you know, I'm having a good time in there. Wow.

Wow.

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

Sheesh.

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

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

Well, you know, as I, as I got older, I mean, I loved, uh, I loved, uh, drawing. I loved, uh, insects. I loved, uh, for— I used to— I was always catching— I still am to this day. I'm catching tadpoles out of a 5-gallon bucket at my house. I'm raising them into tree frogs and letting them go in a tree in my yard. But as a kid, I was always, you know, I was always collecting insects and putting them in jars and watching them. And, uh, you know, I was a little mean to insects. You know, I used to catch worms, and I would stomp on a fire ant bed and throw them in there. I don't think it was serial killer stuff because I wasn't doing it to animals. They say serial killers do it to animals. I've always loved animals, but bugs, I don't know. I loved— you know, you could say I was torturing the worm, but I was really feeding the ants.

Good point.

You know?

So you—

so do you— you—

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

Yeah. I—

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

I like that I say that I'm doing it for my kids, and they do like it, but I think I enjoy it more than they do. I really just love it. I love, you know, these tadpoles were in a 5-gallon bucket, and I thought, well, they're gonna die if I don't get them out of here. So I collected them and I put them in an aquarium, and then over time, I, you know, I bought a filter and I put rocks in there, and I get, I get really into it. I feed them.

Do you live out in the woods?

I, I have. I mean, I, I'm— the part of Nashville I'm in, I'm, I'm, you know, there's a million houses, but I happen to have found a spot with 3 acres. Nice. So I have a little garden, and I got, you know, I got an oak tree that's probably 100 years old. Uh, it's a huge oak tree.

I love that stuff, man.

I do too. And I'm, you know, I collected acorns last year, and I, I grew a bunch of little oak trees, and I'm, I'm not doing a great job keeping them alive, but I have— I probably still have 50 little oak trees that next year, or maybe even in the winter of this year, I'd like to plant them out and, uh, try to, try to grow them up.

No kidding.

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

I almost moved to McMinnville.

Oh yeah?

I love that town.

I do too.

Like, nobody goes there.

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

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After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Are you a prepper?

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

Nice. Nice.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, maybe.

That's probably true.

And then COVID hit. Yeah.

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

Yeah, I mean, in the Bible, you know, in Genesis, we have, uh, the— you know, there was a dream that was prophesied by Joseph, and he said, hey, this is saying you're gonna have 7 years of feast and then 7 years of famine, so be prepared. And they got prepared and they, they survived. That's why I'm like, let me be prepared.

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

I don't go as often as I'd like, but we get out, you know, maybe once a month, maybe once every 2 months.

Yeah.

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

Nice.

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

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

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

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

You know, I liked, you know, I was, uh, you know, I loved to play. Like, in the trailer park I lived in, there was woods on either side of us So me and my friends, we would go, we would just spend the day in the woods. We had creeks, and even back then I was collecting crawfish and little salamanders and tadpoles. And, uh, and we, we would just, uh, you know, run. I built a rope swing out in the woods. And, and then my dad— my dad lives on a farm, and so he had land all around him. And we would find, you know, we would find vines You know, like Tarzan out there. And we would swing on the vines over creeks. And my dad had four-wheelers, and we would ride, and we would go down to the Tallapoosa River. And we would, uh, you know, my dad was always like, never swim in this river. And the moment we could get down there without him, we were swimming in the river. And we loved it. I mean, we just were real country kids. I mean, you riding— before we had four-wheelers, we're riding bikes down dirt roads.

And It was just like being outdoors was where it was at. There was a store up the way from my dad's house where he had a charge account on there, and we would just go up there and we would get ice cream and microwavable hamburgers. And we just were living a real country life.

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

I don't— I mean, I'm paranoid enough to where I would never let my kids just disappear the way I used to disappear. And I want them to, but at the same time, you know, if I'm in a store with my kids and they go on the other aisle and I'm not on there, I'm like, you gotta— you know, I'm like yelling at them almost, like, don't leave the aisle that I'm on. Yeah, because, you know, it's just— I don't know if it is any scarier today than it used to be, but it feels like it.

I think it is.

I think it is too.

I think— yeah, yeah, I, I think it is.

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

There's just so much more you have to worry about nowadays than you— that you didn't. Yeah, back then. Not that they did— that our parents didn't have to worry about stuff, but Now there's just a whole new slew of things.

Yes.

And everything's so accessible too, you know what I mean? And people have much more access to your kids through internet, social media, you know.

Oh yeah.

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

So true. It's— yeah, it's so crazy. It's like, um, Yeah, I mean, it's, it's wild. But, you know, my mom worked third shift, so I probably stayed at home by myself way earlier than I should have. Uh, but, you know, in the trailer park I lived in for a while, you know, my sisters lived there, but my sisters are 9 and 11 years older than me. We have a different dad. So, you know, as they got older, they moved out. And then my, my other sister and brother-in-law lived next door to us in a trailer. So I would, you know, I would stay alone in my trailer, but they were next door. And I remember, you know, the old collect calls you would get where it would be, uh, you know, this is, uh, AT&T, you have a collect call from, and then they would say their name. I remember once I woke up and the phone rang and it said, you know, this is AT&T, you have a collect call from, I know where you live, you're dead. And I go, and I, you know, I jump up and run across to my sister's house and bang on the door.

And then I stayed at her house for a long time, but they smoked cigarettes inside, you know, so I'm— I'm, you know, I'm getting— I'm smoked up all night, and then I'm going to school, and probably all my clothes, probably my hair smells like smoke.

Yeah. You know, were you a good student?

I was a good student. I, you know, I made, uh, A's and B's, uh, you know, growing up. I remember in 2nd grade, I was in classes, and I got— I got— they took me out of the class I was in to move me to a, a more advanced math class. So I think I might have been the only kid, you know, there were other kids that were in the advanced class for all subjects, but I might have been the only kid in 2nd grade changing classes. And, you know, and I always did, you know, the advanced classes as I got older, you know, but, you know, once I, you know, I hated homework and—

Mm-hmm.

I never was much of a reader. So, you know, we had summer reading and those were always the And then when you get to school, you take 2 tests on the books that you were supposed to read. And those are always the first 2 tests that I would fail every year because I had no idea. I loved an essay question because I'm a bit of a rambler. And, uh, an essay question, I can just write and write and write until the teacher goes, all right, I know you don't know what you're talking about, but I'll give you a couple points for this creativity here. So did you—

you primarily lived with your mom?

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

And your dad had a farm?

My dad had a farm, and my dad got remarried when I was roughly 5, and he had— his wife had 2 kids. So I had 2 stepbrothers for 10 years of my life, and then they got divorced.

Gotcha.

And they were older than me. So, you know, I went from— I was almost like— I felt like, you know, maybe the other kids don't feel like this, but I felt like I was king of the trailer park, right? I had all these other kids But they all came to my house because my mom was asleep. She worked third shift. So we were, you know, we, we brought all the trash from the neighborhood to my house and we would build things out of it. I remember we had a cat one time. We were— we would build a cage obstacle course for the cat. We were just trying to see, can we trap this cat in here with all this wood? And the cat would always find a way out and we would— and then we would build a new thing. We weren't hurting the cat. I think the cat probably loved it. But we were always building an obstacle course. And but when I was at my dad's, you know, I had 2 older brothers. So I went from, you know, king of the trailer park to now I'm being picked on all day, you know.

So you like being with your mom more, probably?

Yeah, I like that. I mean, I liked my parents, you know, but, you know, my dad had all these cool things. My dad had a pool, my dad had four-wheelers. And, you know, but with my mom, you know, I was, you know, I was the king. That was the, you know, we didn't have the same things, but, you know, I, you know, and I love both my parents, but it's, uh, yeah, I mean, it was a little more free when you're, you know, allowed to do basically whatever you want.

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

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

So you went from a trailer park to a house?

Yes.

How was that?

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

How old were you when that started, when those thoughts started coming in?

I would say about 8th grade. We had Hurricane Opal come through, which, you know, in Alabama where I was at, you don't get a lot of hurricanes, but it kind of Spawned up some tornadoes and some trees fell on our trailer, right? So we had— so then kids are starting to tell their stories about what happened to them in Opel, and I, you know, and I'm suddenly revealing that I'm living in a trailer and that our house is partially destroyed, even though we're living in it with a tarp over it right now. And, uh, and I don't know, I just think it started to occur to me. And then 9th grade, I moved to high school. That was probably the hardest year for me just internally. I don't think anything— I don't think anything was going on, but my best friend had moved away. And, you know, I was just starting— I had a ton of friends, but just internally, I was starting to feel this, like, kind of self-conscious, I'm poor thing. And I don't even know where it was coming from.

Just a lot of insecurity.

Yeah.

Self-induced insecurity.

Yeah. Tommy Hilfiger was the cool clothes. All the wealthy kids had Tommy Hilfiger. I didn't have a single Tommy Hilfiger thing, uh, and I just, uh, started to feel weird about the way I dressed. And style was becoming more of a thing, and I felt like I didn't, you know, I didn't have any of that.

Mhm.

And then, you know, you, you know, just, I don't know, different things happen where you're like, you know, your parents aren't together, and, and so you don't have— not that I didn't have a support system, but you feel like You know, my parents don't get along. They're not agreeing with each other. So that's why I think, you know, if you have kids, I think marriage is so important because it just, you know, you're keeping the— you're always this safety net for your kids.

How long have you been married?

I got married in 2017, so 9 years.

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

I don't know that I have any idea, but I, you know, I don't even, you know, like I've, I have 2 older sisters and they've been married, you know, for a long time. They have successful marriages, but I don't know if a successful marriage is anything other than just staying in the marriage no matter what. It's just like things— there's, there's times when things are like the happiest and you're like, oh, this is wonderful, what a great family. And then there's times where you're fighting and you— and you— it's like, I don't think anybody says that marriage is supposed to just be happiness all the time. I think it's just like, you just— when you go— like, that's why the vow is, uh, you know, uh, uh, hard times and good, sickness and health, where it's like It's gonna be hard. Life's gonna be hard sometimes. But I, I don't, um, you know, it's like, as far as marriage, like, I, I'm like, I never give marriage advice because I'm like, I always feel like I'm new, even though I'm saying 9 years now. But it's like, uh, I don't know. I mean, my, my, my, my mom was married twice.

My dad was, is married 4 times now. His latest marriage. Uh, you know, it was over 20 years. And, uh, so I think that's a success.

But, uh, so over 20 years?

Over 20 years.

Right on.

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

Yeah.

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

I hope not.

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

Yeah, that it says that, that option doesn't even It's not an option, right? Doesn't even pop in my head. Or my wife said that, I know.

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

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

Well, I don't ever remember them being married. Okay, so I, I don't know, but I I think that I just, you know, I learned that, you know, even though like both of my parents loved me, being divorced was hard on me.

Mm-hmm.

So I, I think I learned that I don't want to do that no matter what, because even now it still affects me in life. I'm 44 years old, and if I want to go visit my parents, I'm still— if like, if I have 4 days, I spend 2 with my mom, 2 with my dad. rather than 4 with my parents. And I go, well, I don't want my kids to go through that. I don't want my kids to, you know, and even if my parents weren't doing it, it's always growing up, it felt like I was making a choice between my parents. And I never want my kids to go through that. I never want my kids to feel any guilt. I go, if I ask my kid, do you want to go with mom to the store? Or do you want to stay with me? I want that kid to freely go, I want to go with Mom. And I go, cool. I'm not going to act hurt about it. I'm not going to be like, oh, I wanted you to hang with me. I go, if you want to go with your mom, go with your mom.

That's cool, man.

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

That's tough though.

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

Yeah. How did you meet your wife?

My wife used to do comedy.

Really?

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

You wanted to move to New York?

I wanted to do it.

From, from Alabama to South Carolina to New York?

I felt like that was the way.

Right on, man.

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

After one week?

Well, I did a month. She did a week. I think she had already made up her mind she wanted— she was living in Toronto, so New York wasn't such a big change for her except she's in America. For me, it would have been a wild change. But a guy I was talking to in the comedy business, when I got back, I told him what my plan was. And he kind of laid out for me 2 options in comedy. He goes, you know, you can move to New York and you can work another job to pay an expensive rent while working the open mic scene, or you could move to a city like Nashville. That's where he was living, but he gave the example. He said Nashville is very centrally located to the country, so you could start working all these other clubs, learning to work the road, In a, in a short time, you could become a full-time comic while learning the comedy business. And I go, actually, I love that idea. I like Nashville. I like, I like country music. And I love the idea that I could not work another job. So I decided to move to Nashville.

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

Does she still dabble in comedy or full-time mom?

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

And I drove up to Toronto. I'd got myself an Airbnb and I got on a show and she came and hung out with me. And we like immediately like reconnected in the way we were in New York. I ended up staying with her my whole time. I never stayed in my Airbnb. And then she— I got— I talked her into leaving with me, and we— she went on my gigs with me to Michigan. I brought her down to Nashville for a few days, and then, uh, and then she flew home. And, uh, and then, then that was it. And then we started dating from there, and she started working on getting her, uh, work visa. And then And then I— she— once she started that process, she wasn't allowed to leave Canada. So we would— so I had gigs in Ohio and Michigan, and I would go up to Canada and we would meet in Windsor or hang out in Toronto.

Right on.

And we did that for a year while I was working the road. And then she finally— she got the visa, but it was only a work visa, so she could— a work visa in entertainment. So she could only make money in entertainment. So I was making like no money. I mean, I'm traveling to do a weekend to make $250, and, you know, $100 of that goes to gas and food, you know. So, but I was living in Nashville. I was living at the, uh, in the west side, and I was living in a big house with 6 other or 5 other dudes. And I had a tiny little apartment in there for $250 a month, not insulated well, in an attic. Super hot in the summer, super cold in the winter. But I was— and my car was paid off. I had bought a car cash. Uh, I saved up money and I was able to buy this car. It was a Volvo I bought with, uh, 100,000 miles. And I was driving that thing all over the country. I traded it in later with 317,000 miles.

Wow.

I never got a Volvo sponsorship, uh, but, uh, but I, I talked to them about how good that car was. And it was, it was a Volvo S60, had a little speed to it. I remember driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just no one around, just rolling out on these back roads. I mean, it was great. Uh, but so she worked the road with me for years, um, and, uh, a couple of years. And then, you know, once I started to have some success, make a little money, she confessed, uh, that she Hated working the road. And I go, great, quit comedy if you want. I've finally made enough money to where you can quit. And, uh, you know, and she's done a few things here and there. She'd have a podcast or she ran an Instagram account for a while that was pretty successful. But, uh, you know, we, it, it just really worked out. The, the more success I had, the more we were able to just settle into a family life where she can stay with the kids and Nice. And, you know, I think she enjoys it most days.

How'd you propose to her?

Well, in the most unromantic slash most romantic way, depending on how you look at it. Her work visa was coming to a close. And, and, you know, I never thought about— like, for a long time, I really thought that I, I didn't want to get married because I was like, I don't know, it seems so complicated. If I love someone, we can just stay in that place, or we can just be boyfriend-girlfriend, but maybe common law married. No need to get the government involved in it. But I— the work visa was coming to an end, and I, and I was faced with a decision to where I was like, either we go through another long drawn-out process of getting her, uh, another visa, or I let the woman that I love go back to her country, or I go, let's get married. And so that's what we did. We just kind of decided, let's get married. And so we did. And then we went through the green card process of, you know, proving to the government that this was a legit marriage and that we weren't just doing this for green card purposes, and we thought it would, you know, it was difficult.

She had a lot of things she had to do, but like they wanted pictures of us together.

Hmm.

So we put together, I mean, we're both creative people, we put together this storybook of our life, and we show up with a binder of pictures, and the lady was like, whoa. She's like, I don't need all this, and she took 1 or 2 pictures. From— but we had, you know, we had a written out thing. This is us in this place and this is our journey. We got into it.

Right on.

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

You still have it?

We do still have it. Yeah.

That's cool, man.

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

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You bought—

did you go back and buy the trailer that you grew up in?

Well, I— well, I did, um, when I was 18. I, I, I, uh— now some of these times get a little fuzzy. I was, you know, I was messing around with several substances at the time. But, uh, I at 18, uh, or at 19, I was working at a Western Sizzlin', which I think that I might have gotten closed. I did, uh, it was, uh, you know, it's been there since my childhood, so it was old. But I made a joke about it on Working Man about sweating, a guy sweating in the green beans while he's filling the buffet.

Oh, shit.

And I just think it's a funny joke. But not long after the Netflix special, Western Sizzlin' shuts down. Uh, so I don't know if it was me or not, but I would— I, as always, I'd like to apologize to them. But the guy had owned it for 30 years. I think genuinely he was ready to retire. And so they sold it to a QuikTrip and they, uh, and it's a, you know, it's a nice spot now. But, uh, uh, so I was working at Western Sizzlin' and this guy who was in the Army was, or who used to be in the Army, was in there. And I got to talking to him one day and, you know, and at the time I was just, you know, I was just getting high all the time and I was just getting high and going to Western Sizzlin' and I wasn't going to college. I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life. And this guy told me about, he goes, I was in the Army, you know, when I was younger. And he's like, I got to see all these parts of the world and I got to do And I go, that sounds awesome.

So when I left, I went to the recruiter's office when I left work that day, and I signed up to be in the Army. Now, you know, I always like to say this, that, you know, it was purely selfish reasons. I have many friends in the military, and I have a friend who signed up for the military, the Marines, around this same time. And we have vastly different reasons and vastly different stories. And I can, I can talk about his in just a second. But I— so I left and I joined, and, uh, the recruiters were asking me about smoking weed and this and that, and we talked all through it. And then I, I joined. I went to, I went to, uh, Montgomery and did a physical and did the whole thing. And then when we got back to the station, they recruiter was like, he goes, he goes, I probably shouldn't tell you this. He goes, but I know you like to smoke weed. And he goes, in 30 days you're going to get shipped off. And, uh, so if you want to do it again, do it tonight because this is the time that you have.

So then that night I got arrested for underage consumption of alcohol and possession of marijuana. And my court date came after my ship-off date.

Wow.

So I, you know, I think I could have worked a deal to where I could go to the Army instead of probation, but I had, you know, I had a signing bonus. I was going, I was going to Fort Benning. I was going to go airborne. That was going to get me a little extra bonus. I was going to be a chef in the— or a cook in the Army, which I had this whole grand plan. I go to the Army, I make a little money for college, and then I learned to be a cook, and I can maybe parlay that into a chef, and then maybe one day own my own restaurant. Something like that. I had a plan, but then, you know, I got arrested. And, uh, and then I would have been, uh, in boot camp, uh, when September 11th happened. So it was, you know, just a wild time. And I, I don't know, a lot of times I think that maybe this was a, you know, a divine intervention where God kept me from going, and because maybe he knew something would happen to me. I don't know. Um, now my friend, on the other hand, we went to high school together.

He joined the Marines because of September 11th, and we were just talking recently. And, uh, not the Marines, he, he joined the Army. He's— he now, he runs the Army Ranger School in Columbus, Georgia.

Oh wow.

And he's like, he's, you know, he's, you know, he gave me a coin recently, one of his Army Ranger coins, and Uh, you know, he's been deployed several times, but he, he's a different kind of guy than me. I'm an artist. Me and this guy weighed the same in, in high school when we were on the wrestling team together. And in order for me to ever wrestle in a tournament, I had to beat him. And I never could beat him. Even one time he goes, he goes, we were buddies. He goes, he goes, I got a, a girl I wanna go see. this weekend, and I don't want to do the tournament. And he goes— so he goes, he goes, I'm gonna let you win, and then you go to the tournament. And I go, awesome. So we wrestled, I beat him, and the coach was like— the coach goes, I don't know. He goes, we're gonna have to do this again. Like, I think he just, he just didn't believe it. He knew my friend was letting me win. And so that's the kind of guy this— that he is. I mean, he's a, he's a jacked guy.

Yeah.

I have no idea how we weighed the same. I got heavy bones or something, I don't know. But, uh, um, but yeah, okay, so my trailer. Okay, so after that, um, I'm stuck now. Now I'm in— now I'm in my hometown now. So now I'm, I'm back to where I started. So I go, um, My sister— when I moved out of the trailer, my sister and her husband moved into the trailer, and then they traded it in like a car to a trailer dealership. So I go to the dealership and I ask, can I buy the trailer? And they sell it to me for $1,000. So, uh, my childhood trailer, at 18 or 19, I now have back. And so I have, uh— so I moved back in with a buddy and we're living there. And my, my brother-in-law worked for a cabinet company at the time, a very nice cabinet company. And this was at a time when, I don't know, the economy was amazing and things were going, and somebody had ordered a set of these cabinets and it was the wrong color, so now they didn't want them and they were just sitting in a warehouse.

So I put in these $2,000 cabinets in this $1,000 trailer, and it looks bad on the outside, but on the inside it looks great. I mean, it's phenomenal in there. And I'm living there, and then I go to court and I find out that my— I have a 9-month suspended driver's license. I'm on 2 years probation. Uh, I mean, they really hammered me. Uh, I had $1,000 in fines, not to mention my lawyer fees. My brother-in-law was kind enough to loan me a bunch of money, which, uh, I would— it would take me a while to pay him back, but I did pay him back. And, uh, and then, you know, and, and that trailer is what I would use to later move to Charleston. I sold it for— I think I sold it for $3,500. So I bought it for $1,000 and I made $2,500, half of which went to pay my brother-in-law back, and the other half would get me to Charleston.

Right on. Right on.

But yeah, I would— but I think about, as thankful as I am that life went the way it went, I think about the policeman that arrested me, who, he's doing his job, but I was on a path to go to the Army, and now instead I'm sitting in a trailer, uh, doing drugs, uh, because, you know, he was, uh, correcting me.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, he was doing his job. I'm not mad at this guy. In fact, because of the way my, my life all turned out, I'm thankful to this guy, you know. It's one of those conflicting things where I think he gave me underage consumption of alcohol because I wasn't drunk. I had open container. So there was, you know, there was no breathalyzer involved. It wasn't a DUI. And then the weed, I know everybody says it, but the weed was my friend's weed that he stuffed in his beer bottle and put it under the seat. Now, neither of us knew what to do. We were kids. We had no idea what we were doing.

Yeah.

But that weed then became mine because it was in my car.

Gotcha.

Now, he got in trouble too. Looking back, there probably was an opportunity for me to just tell them, hey, this is mine, he didn't have anything to do with it. But, you know, I didn't know what was going on.

So were you into hard drugs or weed and alcohol?

Well, I messed around with some stuff, you know, that, uh, I got, I got this in my, my book that's coming out. This— I feel like so many of my stories I've shared in my My whole drug thing is my one big secret in my book that, uh, it actually is a kind of a thing that, uh, I hope my— you know, I'm 44 years old, I'm still worried about my parents finding out about drug use that I did. But, you know, we had fun. All drugs were fun to me. I don't know that I was— you know, I was blessed to never be addicted. to anything. And, uh, my only problem was alcohol, really, because I, I never viewed alcohol as bad. Like drugs, I go, this is bad, I shouldn't be doing this, and this can't become my lifestyle.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, I did acid and, uh, you know, ecstasy and all those sorts of things, and, uh, recreationally. And that was, uh, had a blast. Sure, I had some bad trips. I, you know, freak out a little bit, but overall I'm having a blast. It's all experimentation to me. I'm listening to Pink Floyd and I'm thinking I'm opening my mind. And maybe I did, but maybe, you know, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe there's parts of the mind that need to be closed.

Yeah, I would definitely agree with you on that one.

You know?

Yep.

But, you know, but, you know, but, you know, I get out of that And, uh, how long were you in that? I, I would say 2 years I was in the trailer. 2 years. And, and the thing about it was I, I didn't have a driver's license, right?

Wait, are we talking about 2 years when I say get out of that, or I was talking about drug use, or you're talking about the trailer?

I started doing some drugs about 17, uh, and, uh, and then I was done by 21. You know?

Oh, wow.

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

These are the worst kind.

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

Yeah.

Wow.

So you, you cleaned it up at 21?

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

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

Yeah.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

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

Why do you say that?

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

Mm-hmm.

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

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

Yeah, I think so.

Which is constantly in your head, every decision? All that kind of stuff?

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

Wow, that's a good point.

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

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

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

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

Well, oh, recently?

Or any.

You know, when I signed with my management that I have now, I really prayed because I went, I got, you know, I got offered JFL, Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, which was a, you know, it's a big deal. And I had no representation.

Right.

So I, from that, I had a really great set and I was really praying, you know, for that, praying that this would be good for me. And I had just a phenomenal set. I mean, it was like there's a bunch of comics and they're all very good. And I, I had the set of the night. I mean, you know, and I don't, I don't say that about many things. I don't feel like I'm necessarily, uh, good at a lot of things, but I am good at comedy. So I feel okay saying that. If I were like just saying I'm good at everything, but I feel like I'm good at comedy. I feel like it comes natural to me.

Mm-hmm.

So I had the set of the night at my JFL unwrapped, and so I had all these offers for management. I had offers for agents. And so it's like, I had never had that before. I had never— for, for 6 years I did comedy, uh, in Charleston And I'd never done a comedy club. No one— there was never any agent in front of me, any manager in front of me. I just did comedy for fun. And now I'm 4 years into being full-time, and suddenly I'm having all of these agents and managers want to sign with me. And I go, this is, is scary to me, right? Because I'm like, I'm just a regular dude. I was Not long ago, I was selling pesticides and waiting tables, and now I'm like, Hollywood is knocking at the door. And I'm like, I want to make sure that I'm signed with the right people and I'm protected. And then in the end, I signed with what I thought was the biggest, and I still think the biggest management company that I had offered to me. But also my manager is a Christian, and I, um, I just, I feel good about it.

I feel like we really, we really mesh well. And, uh, and my agent is, uh, is a Christian, you know, and I, you know, I've met their families.

Uh, really?

You know, my, my agent is, uh, lives in Nebraska now. She's originally based in LA, but Uh, and I did comedy for her children's Catholic school 2 times. Uh, my age— my manager still lives in LA, but, uh, met her, uh, husband, and I've stayed— she, you know, she has a house in Colorado Springs where she grew up, and I've— she's let me stay at her house, or basically a childhood home. And, you know, I just think they're good, regular people, and that's what I want. I want— I want to do comedy at the highest level I can do it, While also being a normal person and also feeling free to talk about Christianity. I was really afraid to talk about it, and then I just felt like that it's like, it's like really frowned upon in, in entertainment. And I don't know why. Maybe it's back to being in 9th grade where I feel like now I'm putting that fear on myself. Uh, but, um, When COVID happened, I started talking about it on my podcast, and then little by little, nothing bad ever happened. And I go, oh great, and now half my podcast is talking about the Bible.

Yeah, we, we, we were, uh, talking to your people about it, and they said something about you're going— you're really exploring the Old Testament now. Yeah, we kind of said, we just got to talk to you about it. What's that? What's going on?

Well, in, you know, in 2012 when I quit drinking, I just, uh, I, I did a total life change. I mean, I quit drinking and smoking cigarettes in the same day. Uh, I, I eventually— I was living downtown. I quit my job as a pesticide salesman, which was You know, I, I kind of make jokes about it and make light of it, but at the time it was the best job I ever had. It's a salaried position. I had health benefits, I had retirement, and it was a good job, especially for a guy that didn't go to college. Uh, and I was like— and I quit that job. I sold my car. I, I ended up, uh, the bed that I had— I'd slept on this bed for 10 years where I, you know, you know, it's disgusting, but I was, you know, an alcoholic. I've thrown up on the bed. I had peed on the bed, and I'm like, this mattress is disgusting. I have a new life. You know what I mean? I say spilled lemonade on the bed, uh, in a joke. But, you know, it's like I go home and I go home wasted, and I go, the best way to not be hungover is to chug a huge glass of water before I go to sleep.

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

Right on. Did you just flip the cushion?

Well, that night, I mean, she's on the cushion too, so I got you. I just put the towel down and, you know, fortunately my girlfriend at that time was also an alcoholic, and so she was sound asleep. She might have woke up, thought she did it. We don't know. Maybe she woke up and did the same thing, you know. Um, but, you know, I just completely transformed my life. I even thought about— I was doing comedy pretty good at the time. I'd already— I, in late 2011, I won the local stand-up comedy competition, which was the pinnacle of Charleston stand-up comedy. So I was like— and I had, you know, it's not like I had not entered the contest before, uh, you know, twice I didn't make it to even the final round. And then this year I won, and it was a big deal. So On the surface, everything was going great. I, I had a girlfriend, I had, uh, won the comedy competition, my job was good, but I just felt terrible. I was so like beat down from drinking that I, I was like, I gotta— and you know, probably a lot of it was cigarettes.

I mean, I was smoking so much. Like, you know, I do a pack a day, but if I was If I was drinking, you know, pack and a half, you know, just pounding cigarettes. And I remember waking up on the day that I— on the day that would be the first day of my sobriety, I tried to have a cigarette with my roommate and I just like, I almost didn't have the lung strength to drag the cigarette. And I go, what am I doing? And I threw it out. And then later that night, I mean, the nicotine craving was hitting me so much that I bought some dip. And I dipped for 3 days. And on that 3rd day, I was just like— I was in the car, I was still, still selling pesticides, I was driving, I put a dip in, and I just felt like that I was sinking into the ground. I can't describe it, but it was just like— I was like, all right. So I threw that out. And then I— a little while later, I got to feeling better again. So I go, all right, a little dip again.

And that same feeling came back to me, and I just threw the dip out. And then I never You know, never dipped again. I mean, for a year, I did no drinking, no weed, no nicotine. And slowly, I got back into weed a little bit. And I mean, I— my weed use is so tiny that it almost doesn't even count. To me, it doesn't. I like it, but it's not— I'm not super functional.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I can't do comedy high. I wouldn't be able to do this podcast high. And so I'm like, I barely do it. Sometimes at night, I'll have a little puff, But I love cigars. I mean, cigars, I'm heavy on the nicotine these days. I love cigars.

Right on.

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

Mm-hmm.

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

And wait, shellfish? Is that— is there a thing on that? Well, this is interesting you're bringing this up because I just interviewed Cardinal Burke, a Catholic.

Yeah.

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

Yeah. And it's like, I mean, that's interesting that he would say that because I feel like most, you know, mainstream people and people with credibility and credentials and all of these things, so many of them disagree with me that even, you know, if I'm talking about this on the podcast, there will be lots of people that quote Paul and Acts and And they'll use all these examples. And I'm not saying that I know, but to me, what I read in Acts and what I read in Paul's writings are not enough to say that I should do it. Now, if I'm wrong, the way I view it, if I'm wrong, then all I did was just not eat pork and shellfish. But if I'm right, then I went against Leviticus, a long chapter in Leviticus and a long chapter in Deuteronomy where it, it said, God says, these are all the animals that I created. These are the ones that I've designed for you to eat. And these are the ones that I've designed for you not to eat. And so, and he says, be holy as I am holy. And when you break down a lot of those animals, like, you know, deer and, uh, Cows and sheep all on their own just eat grass, and then they have multiple stomachs, and they, they, they, you know, they filter all this food, and this meat is very good.

And a pig, on the other hand, has one stomach, will eat just about anything. They say pig skin is tough enough that a snake can bite it, and it Won't affect it. Pigs don't sweat, so they just have a lot of toxins. And some, uh, scientific stuff I've seen shows that— I think Dr. Ax has actually, uh, said this— that pigs actually are more toxic. And, you know, so it's just bad for our body. And I just think that's God saying, hey, uh, this is good. I've designed this for you to eat, and it's really good. And this is going to be And this is going to be bad for your body. And, and then like when you get into fish, it's like fish with fins and scales are clean. And then you look at what they eat, most of those eat good stuff. And then the ones that are bad are like shrimp and oysters and scallops and, you know, catfish. And they're all kind of filters for the water.

Interesting. I didn't know this.

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

Wow. That's a good point. Yeah. You know, I've been— I don't know. I think about— I think that Whatever. Probably get blasted for this conversation. Who cares? But, um, yeah, I think it's like I'm new at this.

Yeah, yeah.

I grew up Catholic, then I, then I, uh, joined the SEAL Teams and whatever, it just went away. I didn't even think about it until the last couple years. I came back to Christianity And now I'm kind of back into— well, not kind of, I'm back into Catholicism because I like it. I like the structure. I like how serious they take things like communion, the sacraments. And I don't know, you know, I look at New Age kind of Christianity and it's just— it's a— for me personally, I just view it as this is like an easy path. It's just they've made it easy.

Yeah.

Like, oh, you just have to believe and then you go to heaven. I don't know if I'm buying that. I don't know if I'm buying that because I think it takes a lot of work, you know what I mean? And being a Christian is like— a real Christian, I think, is hard. I'm trying to do it, and, and, and it's just like, I don't know, man. I think you gotta— like, you're talking about praying before every decision. I don't necessarily pray before every decision, but I think about like I think about it, you know, what would he do in this specific scenario? Or if I reflect on things and I'm like, yeah, that didn't really align, you know? And, but it's hard. Like, we just started this with Cardinal Burke. We started— because I haven't read the whole Bible and I don't understand most of what I have read. And so I've kind of turned over this new leaf where we're going to go through every single book of it on the show. And I love that. And, uh, and I've already started losing sponsors because of it.

Oh yeah.

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

Oh yeah.

And they've been with me forever.

Yeah.

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

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

Yeah, but I mean, exactly. And it shows, like, it's like, well, I could— I guess I could fold because all you got to do is believe, right? And then you go to heaven, supposedly. But I don't— I just don't buy it. I think, like, now it's like, oh, all right, this is going to be a hard road. And now you're really at an inflection point where it's like, well, I can either not do it because I'm infatuated with advertisers and money, or that goes away, which you can't take with you anyways. And to me, there's not really much of a decision to be made. I've chosen the path. you just kind of— you got to stick with it, otherwise you're just weak. I mean, could you imagine? Like, could you imagine going to Judgment Day and they're like, dude, you're a bitch? Yeah, look at that. You had a decision right there in front of you and you took the bitch road. Well, thanks. What—

well, what happened to me, uh, was during cut— like, because I was always sort of afraid of that same thing, right? Where I'm like, if I Am outward about Christianity, what if I lose all my gigs? What if I— and then I— this path that I've chosen to go down, now I can't do it. And then COVID came and I lost all my gigs, and I just felt like it was like God saying to me, you can lose all your gigs anytime. He's like, I can take everything away from you immediately. And you— and I'm the one that gives, I'm the one that takes away, and you're, you're worried? I— if you— I, I've all— and I just keep thinking, like, if I believe that I serve the creator of everything and yet I'm afraid, uh, of the world that he created, then I don't know, I just feel like I gotta, like, be in there. But I, you know, I also want to do it in a way that, like, um— You know, I don't want to run away people. I don't want to run people off, which is what people think I'm doing with the commandments.

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

Mm-hmm.

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

Mm-hmm.

And, and, and, you know, and it's like, there, there is a scary verse where, you know, it says, uh, you know, many peo— this is Jesus talking— many people will say unto me that in that day, Lord, Lord, And I will say, depart from me, I never knew you, ye that work iniquity. And iniquity translates— many translations, but translates to lawlessness or those who lived as though there is no law. And I just— it's a scary verse to me where I go, now that I have the information I have, I can't just go— And then if I read Paul, I just got to think, I'm misunderstanding what Paul's saying, because Paul can't be saying you don't have to follow what God said. Or, you know, like, where is he getting it from? That's my question for people always, you know?

Mm-hmm.

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

Yeah.

Rather than dive deeper.

Yeah. Yeah. We get a lot of that too.

Yeah.

A lot of judgment.

Yeah. And You know, the Bible— you know, people also say that the Bible says that we shouldn't judge, and it says we should have righteous judgment where we judge our brothers and sisters in Jesus by using the Bible. And we say, hey, this is what it says we should do. And I shouldn't pass judgment and go, you're wrong, you're bad, but go, hey, this is what the Bible says. This is how we should be doing it.

Yeah.

And then we, you know, this utopia that I think we all would like to live in, would be, in my belief, if we all, you know, just, you know, we treated each other better. And the Bible tells us how to do that. Love it.

Dusty, let's take a quick break. Most guys try to cover up body odor with cologne or body spray. But if you've been training, traveling out in the heat, on long flights, or just grinding through a long day, that only goes so far. That's why I use Mando. Mando is a whole body deodorant, so it's not just for your underarms. You can use it on your pits, feet, below the belt, basically anywhere sweat and odor become an issue. What I like is Mando handles odor at the source instead of just trying to cover it up. It's safe to use anywhere on your body. They've got solid deodorant sticks, sprays for harder to reach places, clinically proven to block odor all day and control it for up to 72 hours. Want to try America's #1 whole body deodorant formula right now? For the best deals, go to shopmando.com and use code SRS for 20% off. S-H-O-P-M-A-N-D-O.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Mando's got you covered. With deodorant plus sweat control, say goodbye to sweat stains and hello to long-lasting freshness. Again, Go to shopmando.com and use code SRS for 20% off. shopmando.com. Do you ever wonder what it takes to make an episode of the Sean Ryan Show?

In this exclusive studio tour, I'm taking you behind the scenes for an in-depth look at every part of the operation, from the editing room in the main studio to the spaces where we film range day content and more. You'll see how the show comes together, meet some of the people behind it, and get a closer look at the work that happens off camera. When you become a paid member of the SRS Patreon community, you get more than just the podcast. Watch new episodes early alongside other members, join monthly live shows with guest Q&As, and submit questions just like you see on the show for upcoming guests on the Protector tier. You'll also unlock exclusive range day videos, behind-the-scenes content, and premium ambience videos that you're not gonna find anywhere else. Join the Patreon community today and get access to the full experience. Yeah, so we were just chatting about Christianity, Old Testament, the law. You brought up gossip. Dude, that's a, that's a hard one. Yeah, I'm working on that one right now too.

It's so hard, uh, because I think about it in so many different ways. Even like, uh, like I think we think about sometimes like celebrities or even politicians that we say that we don't like. It's like it's still a— and, you know, and we can talk about them and it's like it's still Like you're, you're badmouthing people and you're, and you're like gossiping about them. And I just think it's weird. Like, I found myself, I was watching this YouTube channel this weekend and it was talking about some other comics and, uh, you know, really kind of trashing some other comics. And, you know, I was just watching it and I go, is that good? Am I like, even if I disagree with them, am I still participating in the gossip of this YouTube channel? And it's like, and that, that to me, that goes back to, uh, you know, loving your neighbor. Are you, are you loving your neighbor if you're just trash talking them? Like, because I often say this, this is, and I feel like this is covering me, I go, I'm not, I'm not trying to trash talk them. But then I'll say some things and I go, but am I trash talking them?

Mm-hmm.

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

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

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

So they're making decisions that are affecting not only you know, us as U.S. citizens, but the entire world.

Yeah.

So that— I, I mean, me personally, I feel like, you know, sometimes maybe you have a responsibility to say something.

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

Well, I mean, you know, I, I'm just curious your thought process. I mean, you know, talking, uh, you know, gossip about a, you know, whatever, insert, uh, public figure, celebrity, comedian, musician, whatever, you know, that's— is that, is that— I mean, they're not making decisions that are going to affect your life in your kid's life, in your kid's kid's life, right? You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's— that just seems, you know, oh, look at so-and-so, they look like, you know, look at her, she looks fat on the beach, you know what I mean? Or, or, right, here she is without her makeup, or so-and-so had, you know, an affair, whatever, you know.

That's right.

I think that's one thing. But then for a politician, you know what I mean, who is I mean, it's going to affect our kids' kids' kids. Yeah. You know, these decisions that are made, and a lot of the decisions are made, you know, it's a lot of selfishness, selfishness up there.

And I think, yeah, critiquing someone would be different than me making the joke that Joe Biden walks like one of Elon Musk's robots, you know? And, uh, and that's funny to me, hilarious to me, when you see a side-by-side of the two of them walking on the beach and you go, they do walk the same. But is that gossip? And we're not talking about a decision that he's making that would be bad for me, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And that's what I think. I mean, I grew up with trash talk. I mean, you know, my— I had, you know, I had an overweight uncle, and he would come to the house, and my dad would always go, that poor truck, you know, that he was driving, you know? He would— or he would see a larger person sitting on a swing, and he'd go, man, they're really testing that swing. You know, and it's funny, but it— that's bad, right? I mean, that's, that's gossip. That's maybe not gossip, but you know, you're trash talking people.

Yeah, I don't know. I guess I always thought of gossip as— I mean, I don't know, is it good? No. A little humor, I don't think ever hurt anybody behind. But, but maybe the gossip, like, the gossip to me is more like Um, rumors, spreading rumors, you know.

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

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

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

Yeah. Yeah. How did you get into it? What, I mean, what, what sent you down the path of reading the law in Leviticus? I mean, what, what, well, is it a certain denomination? Somebody push you towards it?

It was, uh, it was just a website that I found. And this lady had a bunch of blogs. And I just started reading them. And as I was reading them, I go, Wow, this really makes sense to me. Like, people will use Acts 10, for example, Acts is a Peter on the rooftop story, and they'll use that to say why food is clean now. This is— food is clean now because they say Peter was on the rooftop, he was praying, and he heard God, and God sent down a sheet, and on the sheet was all kinds of animals, clean, unclean animals, all kinds of things. And God says, Peter, rise, kill, and eat. And Peter says, not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And God says, do not call unclean what I have made clean, right? And then the— and he does that 3 times, and then the sheet goes back up. And so everybody says, well, that's God saying food is clean. But Peter says that he was very confused about the vision, that it didn't make sense to him what that vision was. And throughout it, the verse goes on, the chapter goes on, and he goes— he's still— many times it references how he's still thinking about that vision.

And later, a guy named Cornelius came to him. Cornelius was a Gentile, and it would be, you know, unlawful for Peter, being a Jewish guy, to meet with this Gentile. And after talking with him for some time, he says that I now understand what that vision means, and that he's saying that God has declared this Cornelius to be clean, and that I should not be considering other human beings unclean. And he just, you know, he details what the vision is. He interprets that vision for us, and that it's— if those people are believers, in Jesus and in God, and he says he was a righteous man, that we should not call them common or unclean. And it, you know, and if it went on to say, and then they, you know, killed a pig and ate it, then we would go, okay, well, I guess it means that too. But they never do. There's never a time when they're talking about eating pork. There's never a Jesus's only interaction with pigs is when he sends a demon into a herd of pigs and runs them off a cliff.

Mm-hmm.

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

Is your wife all on board with this?

My wife does it, uh, you know, and I don't force her to, but I, I don't know that she always, you know, because she, you know, if you read mainstream Christianity or talk to almost any preacher, they're going to disagree with me. So it— you really have to— but I'm convinced. I, I've read the Bible, I've prayed about it many times, I've prayed earnestly and humbly that if I'm wrong about this, I pray that I would be shown that I'm wrong, because it doesn't do anything for me career-wise or friend-wise, or it doesn't gain me anything to believe this. So if God— if I'm wrong, I'm like, show me that I'm wrong, and then I can just go back to, you know, being a normal Christian with everybody else. But, you know, so far it's— I don't know, just nothing has really hit me in a way where I go, nah, this is, this is it.

What's the blog?

For everybody else?

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

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

Yeah.

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

Mm-hmm.

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

Interesting stuff.

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

Yeah. We were kind of chatting about this before we started here. How do you handle being a dad and a husband? On the road the majority of the weekends throughout the year?

I mean— Well, you know, I try to minimize my travel as much as I can, right? I, I go for the most part— now I'm in a sort of a busy season right now. I got, you know, the book is coming out, and then I, you know, I'll have to, you know, I'll be doing podcasts to promote the book. And then, uh, I, I, I was saying I have to go record the audio portion of my book next week, which will take some time. But for the most part, what I try to do is I do theater gigs now, and so I try to do Friday and Saturday in a theater and then go home. So typically I try to fly out on Friday, gone for 2 nights, back home. It doesn't always work out that way. You know, I do corporates and stuff like that where, you know, like this week I'm, I'm all— I have a corporate and then I got gigs on the weekends. And but, uh, you know, then I do 2 podcasts a week on my own every week, but I, I— my justification is like, well, if I had a regular job, if I was a regular 9-to-5er, every day I would leave the house at, you know, 8 AM, and then I'd get home at 5 or 6 if I was lucky.

And then I'd be gone 40 or 50 hours a week, uh, but I, I would be home every night with my kids, but I would be gone all the time during the day. This way, I'm like, when I'm gone, I'm gone. But when I'm home, I'm home, you know. So when I'm home, I have, you know, 3 or 4 days to spend with my kids, and then I'll be gone for 2 or 3 days, but then I'm home for, you know, 3 or 4 days where we have full days.

Where your kids go to school?

My kids— my kids are, uh, my daughter is just 5, so she's the only one. And right now, uh, we've made the decision to homeschool for kindergarten. We don't know what we'll do after that. I feel like kindergarten's pretty easy. And we already— I mean, my daughter's already— I don't want to say she's reading, but you can read a little book with her and she can do most of the reading. She has to carefully sound out the words, but she can do it. And then she's doing math and she can draw a lot of her— I think she can draw all the letters, but she can write some words. And so I feel good about what we're doing.

Right on.

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

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

Uh, well, it's hard.

At the cabin?

Yeah, it's hard because I think that we're like supposed to work, right? I feel like, like I understand retirement if you've had a really hard job your whole life and at the end you go, I just want some years to enjoy myself.

Mm-hmm.

But I do think that we're supposed to work. You know, I think it's good for us. I think it gives us, you know, whether that work be like my wife doesn't necessarily have a job, but I most certainly think what she does at home is work. You know, she maintains our house, she educates our kids. So, I definitely think that it's work. But yeah, I mean, I'd love to, I'd love to, uh, like I got into this whole, uh, um, what they call a food forest, or, um, now I can't think of the actual kind of word they use for it. It'll come to me. But where you, you design basically, uh, a plot of land where you basically build a forest, but everything that's growing is food bearing. In some way where you might start with a, you know, maybe you start with oak trees so they have their acorns, or maybe even a black walnut tree or something. I'm not an expert. I know black walnut trees can send roots out that kill other things. But let's say a nut tree that grows big, that's your top canopy. And then you have fruit trees, which will be smaller trees.

And then you have bushes like our blueberry bushes and Uh, and then you get down to the bottom and you have ground cover, which could be strawberries or thyme or things like that. So you've, you've created this whole ecosystem that's all food-bearing. So you could just walk through there and pick food. And the idea would be that it never needs fertilizer and it never needs pesticides, because as fruit drops and decomposes into the ground, it's acting as a fertilizer. And as you prune it, You also just drop those. The leaves will fertilize it. And then different things, different herbs work as insecticides. So, you know, like if you plant— supposedly, I've never made it work yet, but supposedly if you plant rosemary or oregano or thyme or basil, it sends off kind of smells and scents that insects don't like. So they won't— you know, attack your trees.

Interesting.

So I would love— there's a guy I watch sometimes on YouTube called Andrew Millison, and he's out of Oregon State, and he's like, uh, doing all this stuff with water. He's, he's been going to, uh, or at least documenting things in India and Africa they're doing where they're using swales as ways to trap the rainwater as it comes down, because a lot of these desert climates have, you know, long dry seasons, and then when the water comes, it comes rapidly. And so when it's already a desert, it just goes away. But if they have little different pockets of swales to block them in, then they can sink into the soil, and then plants can grow. And they're like, they're like bringing back Greenland into the desert.

Interesting.

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

Yeah.

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

That would be cool.

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

Do you have a greenhouse?

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

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

Yeah. And, you know, even, you know, like you say, if money's no object, you know, I just hire some Uh, you know, a maintenance guy for the garden, and he just comes in and watches over it. That's what I'd like to do. I mean, I had guys come build these swales in McMinnville, and, and trees I planted 2 years before that are just on a slope because— and it's all red clay, right? So when it gets dry, it gets real hard. So the rain comes in, just runs right down. But if you have the swale, gets caught. And then it sinks down in. So the trees that are 2 years younger on the swales have trunks like this, whereas the trees that are older on the slope have still tiny trunks because they're not getting the water that they need. And I'm not out there able to do it.

Interesting.

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

You are into it.

Yeah.

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

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

No chickens?

No. See, I'd love chickens. I'd love to get chickens, sheep. I'd love a cow. I mean, I got 3 acres. I can't talk my wife into letting us turn the, our yard into a pasture. Which is understandable. But I'd love a cow or even some sheep. And they say chickens are the first. Chickens are the gateway animal to the homestead. But, you know, I'm— my baby is 5 months old right now. So I'm like, let's give— let's let the baby get older. And then I'll bring in some chickens.

Right on, man. Right on.

Yeah, I mean, I'm into oak trees. I mean, oak trees take 50 years to get to any size, right? But I feel like we just bulldoze the oak trees all the time. So I go, if I don't plant the oak trees, will my kids or my kids' kids even have any oak trees to look at?

Yeah. Yeah. We got some awesome oaks out here.

Oaks are the best. I saw some oaks coming in. It's— they're the best. I love an oak tree.

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

Yeah, moved there in about 2003.

Started taking off.

Yeah, I moved there about 2003 with, with my, my, one of my childhood best friends, and we had a falling out almost right away. We had never done anything like this. Both of us were broke. I was especially broke. I had a little money to move there, but I was working at Office Depot. I was making I was making $7.25 an hour, I think, and, uh, my rent went way up moving to Charleston. So I didn't have any friends. Uh, my friend— me and my friend were fighting a lot because his girlfriend moved up with him, and I didn't have any friends. So I saw in a newspaper, the Charleston City Paper, there's an advertisement for improv classes, comedy improv classes. And I had only seen like Whose Line Is It Anyway? But I thought, well, that seems fun. I'll do that. So I took that class and then I started to meet people. And I ended up— me and my roommate, we split and I moved in with one of the guys that I met at improv classes. And then from improv, I met some other people and they were like, you should try stand-up.

And we didn't have a club, but we had some stuff going on in town. So I, I did stand-up and I liked it pretty well. But so I did that from like 2000— end of 2003 to like 2005. But then I moved to Folly Beach and I was just drinking and, and I was having a good time. And I bombed a couple of times at comedy and I was like, I don't like the way that makes me feel. And I'm having a great time just hanging on the beach. So for the next 3 years, I just partied and I sold pesticides and waited tables and drank on the beach. And then in 2008, uh, another— the same friend came back to me and said, hey, I'm doing this show now at Theater 99, which is where I took the improv classes, where I would pursue comedy all the way, which I just this past Thursday was able to do stand-up there because the building has been sold and they're closing that theater. Uh, so I got to do a real end of an era type Nice. Uh, but the, um, but I, in 2008, I went back and I did this, uh, letters of the alphabet bit, which I have a YouTube— I have— I now have an animated version of that on YouTube where I, I just kind of gave a few letters of the alphabet some human characteristics.

It's my most creative, weirdest bit that I, I never want to do live again because it's complicated, but But I did it, and I did it sober on stage, and it just felt so good that I was like, this— I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to do stand-up. And then so for the next 4 years, I would do stand-up in Charleston as a hobby, uh, drinking. Uh, I did it sober that one time, and I go, that felt good. And then I would start drinking while I was doing it. But Uh, so for the next 4 years, I would just be doing comedy in this way, drinking, partying, hanging out with my buddies and doing comedy. But I loved it. I was good at it. And then by the end of, uh, 2011 is when I would win that comedy competition. And I— and, and then in 2012, I quit drinking. And I spent the next 2 years in Charleston sober, doing comedy. And by the end of 2012, I entered that same comedy competition. And I think somebody told me in 2011, I won by 2 votes. And in 2012, after a year of being sober doing comedy, I won by like a landslide.

Like there was no one even close to me.

Wow.

Because I just got focused and I got really honed in. And I also, you know, I didn't have anything to do. I didn't have a real job. I was waiting tables 3 days a week, and I was just going to coffee shops writing jokes.

Have you ever just had a total bomb?

Oh yeah.

What was the worst one?

Well, this one particular gig I did in— I don't know, there's varying degrees of bombs. There's like a bomb where you're like, the circumstances were all bad for this. was all wrong. This should never have been set up this way. And then there's a bomb where people are in their seats at a comedy club looking straight at you, and, uh, you go, I, I just bombed here. I opened for Arie Spears in Richmond, Virginia at the Funny Bone, and I had opened for Arie Spears before, but we had a— we were doing, you know, traditional host, feature, headliner. And I was the feature. So a host went up. This was in Kansas City. A host went up, did 10 minutes, and then I go up to do my 20 or 30. And in Kansas City, it was like I was blowing up the room. I mean, it's like people were, you know, laughing. It was a great set. So I'm excited to work with Aries again, but this time in Richmond, it's a 2-man show, which means it's just a feature and the headliner. So I have to go up to a cold audience, and I go up for 20 minutes, and I just eat it.

And a guy— somebody in the audience makes a weird noise, and I go, oh, someone's dying out there. And this guy goes, no, you're dying up there. And I just— I was like, when I left that show, I just was like, I don't know what I gotta do, but I gotta figure this out because these are the gigs. So if I'm gonna do this, I gotta figure this out.

Mm-hmm.

I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do it. And I don't know that I necessarily figured it out in that same scenario, but I think you do enough comedy to where you can recognize what the situation's gonna be, and you go, all right, I know how this is gonna be, so now I know how to handle it. Like, I just did a music festival in, in Florida. It was a country music festival. Alan Jackson's It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere Fest. And I was excited about it. But when I— once I saw the stage and it was outdoor, I go, all right, I know what this is gonna be. This is not gonna be a captive audience ready for me to just do setup, punchline. I'm gonna try it. Wow.

You have that much insight.

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

How do you adjust for that?

Well, you just go out and you just say, I know they're not gonna be listening to me that much. And I know I'm not gonna get the reactions that I'm looking for. So, you know, you try a couple of jokes and then you just try to do a little crowd work. You try to mess around. You just do some other fun things instead of just being like, I'm just gonna keep doing my setup, punch, setup, punch until I sink myself into a hole and lose all confidence in my jokes. Because it's like, When you do a joke, you know, 100 times and it works, and then you go in front of an audience and do it and it doesn't work, you go, okay, well, none of these jokes are gonna work. If this one didn't work, none of these are gonna work. So I'm just gonna— I'm gonna sing half of John Mellencamp's Jack and Diane in front of the audience, and, uh, and then make fun of this guy's hat. You know, that sort of stuff. Like, I like to go, you know, if in a situation I was singing and then I'd go, all right, everybody, you know, that just that sort of thing where, you know, they're not going to join in, but you're just kind of like, all right.

And then you just kind of make fun of yourself and you can look at people's faces out there and see them start to get into it. And then you try a joke, you know, and that's what I did. I had 20 minutes and I go, I can talk for 20 minutes.

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

What is a corporate?

A corporate's like where a company hires me just to come in and do comedy for their for their employees. And sometimes they're amazing. Like, I did a Boot Barn. I did a corporate in Vegas for Boot Barn. It was amazing. But then, you know, I did a corporate for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, and, uh, it was, it was okay. I would say none of them are bad, but there are some that are like, it's okay. Because the difference is, like, if I, if, if I do a theater show, It's 1,000 or more people that have bought tickets to see me do comedy. They like my jokes. They're there to see me. If it's the Department of Transportation, there— it likely is the, uh, booker of that department is a huge fan of me. And then, you know, the rest of the employees, and you hope that there are some of them that are fans and some of them are, but a lot of them are like— I'm at work, I don't want to be here, and I've just listened to people talk all day about different things. And even though this guy is funny, he's still just talking, and all I want to do is go back to my hotel, you know?

And that's what some of them are. But I do some in Nashville here sometimes where it's like, it's super fun because they're in Nashville, they're partying, and, and they're just excited to be here.

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

I think it's just, you know, it's just being in the world. It's like just living a normal life. And, uh, you know, it's like, you know, going to the grocery store, having weird customer service interactions. Uh, and, and, you know, I try to not do family jokes because I feel like what happens— and it will happen to me inevitably, probably— but I feel like what happens is A comic starts making jokes about their family, and then they— it's like they get locked into— now this is either their fans start to come to expect it, and they're like, my fans love it because all my fans have families, and it becomes your wheelhouse, or you're just like, this is all I can think about now. So I'm trying to stay away from it as long as I can. And then I also don't want to make jokes about my kids. I feel like, you know, there, there, there's a couple of jokes I've made here and there about my kids, but I don't wanna lock it into my set where I'm like, I don't want my kids to grow up and go, oh yeah, my dad was gone a lot of my childhood and, uh, just found out he's been making fun of me this whole time.

That fun interaction me and him had that I thought was a secret, he told people on Netflix.

Yeah.

You know?

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

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

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

The— what was the second part?

Fame, like, I mean, all the stuff you have going on.

The interesting thing is I don't think of myself as famous, even though I get recognized a lot out here in the world. I feel like I've had this, and this is how I describe it to people. I grew up, you know, in a relatively small town, and I, you know, I was, I was always a funny guy, and I had a lot of parties. So I was pretty well known around town. So I could go around town and people would always say hey to me. And then I moved to Charleston, and I, I'm doing comedy there, and I'm winning local competitions. And so I started to be well known in that town for doing comedy. And so I'm like, Now I'm just, uh, uh, I'm that same guy just on a larger level. So it feels good in the way that I, you know, I think if you're like a, uh, I don't know, maybe a super attractive dude or probably more an attractive woman, it's different for you. Uh, but for me, it's like, it's like people just want to be my friend, you know? They're just like, hey, we're having a good time and You know, I'm going, all right.

And it's like, it's just cool and normal. Yeah, we're not— people, you know, they want to have cigars with me and talk conspiracies. And, and I think that's fun.

You're into conspiracies?

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

What's— you heard any good ones lately?

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

Do you think we landed on the moon?

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

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

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

What?

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

None of the shadows line up.

Yeah.

There's that.

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

Have you looked into this? You've looked into it?

As best I can.

Have you seen the Y-Files episode on it? I don't know who the Y-Files is.

Oh, I have seen the Y-Files. Yeah.

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

And I'm just like—

It's really good.

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

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

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

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

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

Are you serious?

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

I don't know about this one.

And I, you know, I just— but if you see that press conference of them answering questions, after landing on the moon, they, they, you know, they seemed very sad. And if you're the first guys ever on the moon, you're not excited? You know, like, let me, let me show you what I saw. And maybe they were just serious people, I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know. I, I don't know. I just, uh, I mean, it'd be also would be one thing to me if like we landed on the moon And then they couldn't get off. Or, uh, you know, because you, you see the thing that we have, the whole, uh, system that we have for launching it, but then from the moon we're like, oh, we got it first try, we got it. We don't have the landing, we don't have the platform, you know.

Oh man, yeah.

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

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

Right. And like, even now, how long—

when did we land? Was it '68?

I mean, there's a vid. Yeah.

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

Where—

yeah, did you like— did— what do you mean you lost it? Did your dog eat it? What does that mean, right? You lost the technology?

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

Yeah, we can't do it. We lost the technology. Haven't been able to find it since 1968.

And what's—

then they're gonna go back and they canceled the mission.

I know.

That was this year, right?

Yeah. And there's one footage, you know, when Elon Musk launched the car into space, you know, he goes, he says, you know it's real because it looks so fake. And I go, what? But that makes sense to people because they go, oh, our CGI is so good.

Mm-hmm.

And I go, nah, I don't know. Don't tell me it looks real because it looks fake.

And, you know, do you think we've been to space?

I don't know. I mean, they always talk about this Van Allen radiation belt that they say we can't get through, that it's like, it's so hard. And I don't know, I just have a hard time with so much of that stuff where it's—

Do you think the world is round?

Well, I, you know, I'm not allowed to talk. My wife says I'm not allowed to talk about these things, but, uh, but, uh, I just don't understand a lot of things.

Uh-huh.

And people try, they explain it, but when they explain it, they're always mad at me when they're explaining it. But I just want— I just always think about the oceans, right? I think about how, you know, if it's a ball, there's water down here, and then, uh, you know, how's that held into place? It's not just pouring off. And it— the explanation is gravity, and I understand that, but I just don't understand how it—

the—

it's, it's holding it in so tight, but the fish swim freely, the feather floats, the butterflies flutter around, and it just— it seems relatively selective. Gravity does, where it's like, you know, this stays, but I have no problem lifting. It's not hard. I'm not I'm not straining to lift my arms. And I just have questions. And I just, uh, I think it's okay to question, but people are very upset about it.

They do. They get up, they get—

And they call me stupid and that how could I be so stupid? And I go, hey guys, I'm not telling you how it is. I'm just asking.

That's all.

And they just think that their answer should always satisfy me. And I go, I'm sorry, it just doesn't. The day that we can recreate a ball that I just see the water stay on is the day I'll go, all right, you got me. And I just— the, the thing about it is, is, is CGI, to Elon Musk's point, CGI is too good to where now I'll have a hard time believing any footage because I go, I don't know. I just— I wanna, I wanna see the video. of the camera on the shuttle that launches, and then I see it, and then we go out of the Earth, and then there's the Earth, and then we go away from— I mean, that's what I want to say. And then as we leave Earth, it's whipping around and gone. And I, I don't know, it just never seems like that's what we're seeing.

Does this line up with any scripture or anything you've read?

Well, I mean, I'm just curious. I mean, Genesis 1 really, you know, really describes You know, the way the earth looks, you know, that there's a, you know, a firmament where that it separates the waters from the water, for the waters below from the waters above. And, and, you know, the sun and the moon and the stars are inside the firmament. And that's what it says. And again, I'm like, if I believe the Bible, I should believe the creation account. You know, and then, uh, uh, and then, you know, it's like when the flood happens, it says the, the waters of, uh, the gates of the heavens opened up and, and water came from above. Um, you know, and it wasn't just rain. The water came from below, water came from above to flood the earth. Uh, and I just go, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, Well, everything I'm being told is real, but you know, there's a, I don't know. I just, uh, I think maybe it's not. I mean, the, you know, they use a verse in Isaiah where they say the circle of the earth, but a circle is not a ball, you know, a circle.

I mean, I could draw a circle and that's not a ball. I mean, this bottle cap from this view is a circle, you know, it's not a— So I don't know.

And, you know, what do you think that means, though?

Well, if you're, if you're in heaven, if you're above and you're looking down, I mean, it could just be a circle. And I don't think it means that even that it would be floating in space. It's just, it's just, you know, it's, it's like on the, you know, it's like, who knows what, what, what actually it's— we're dealing with. But it could just be like, you know, it's like this, and then we have a circle that's on, and that's where we live. But this is, you know, landmass, and maybe there is no bottom, you know. It never— the, the, the depths never end.

What's on the outside of the circle?

I don't know. I mean, the Bible often talks about a, uh, an outer darkness where it describes a wailing and gnashing of teeth, where it's like That's like, and God is light. So the darkness is the absence of God. So that's what, you know, I don't know, I think hell would be like, would be the, that God is no longer around. God is our light. God is what's good. And everything the opposite of God is darkness and bad. And without God, it's, it's just the outer darkness where it's, you know, There is no protection from God.

What do you think the edges are of the Earth?

Well, the only— you know, a lot of people say that, you know, and these are all things people say, I have no idea, but they would say that it would be an, you know, an ice wall, right? It would be because, you know, the pattern of the sun would move more like a clock as opposed to us moving around the sun. The sun would be local. And would be moving like a clock around us. So that's why the center is cold and the outside is cold, because the sun spends less time there and then more time kind of in the middle. Like the— you would have the, uh, Tropic of Capricorn, I think, is first, then the equator, and then the Tropic of Cancer. So it would move along those lines like a clock, but it spins You know, so when it's— this, I'm gonna be, uh, my wife is gonna be mad at me about this, but when, when, when this— and this is all hypothetical, that's right?

Yeah.

I'm not saying I believe it. This is what I've looked at, that the sun, if it's on the equator, it's now like, let's say it's, um, fall on the Tropic of Cancer and then spring on the Tropic of Capricorn. So then it moves on to that. And then that's why the hottest parts of the world, it's never really wintertime. It's always warm because the sun is never 2 lines away from them. This is better demonstrated if you can visually see it, but where, you know, you actually have winter in one place. And then it would, it would explain why, say, in Alaska you have these times of where there's always sunlight because, you know, that would be— I guess it'd be summer, where the sun is just, you know, moving around a small circle. And it's— for us, it would be fall or, or spring, and depending on if it's coming or going. And then, and then when it's on the outer line, it would be days of complete darkness.

Wow.

And, you know, I'm no scientist, but I, you know, I'm just a guy who has spent, uh, I have a— I used to have Lots of free time. I used to be unmarried, on the road, in hotels, watching videos, listening to podcasts.

Well, then what do you think about aliens? Curious about that.

I don't— I think aliens are likely spiritual beings.

That's what I think.

And, you know, probably not coming from um, space, but coming from another realm.

That's what I think.

Yeah. And that, you know, the Bible, it talks about anytime people encounter angels, even good angels coming to help, they're scared of them and they bow before them because they're afraid of them. And some of them in Ezekiel, some of the heavenly beings that are described would be Pretty scary for us to say. But then aliens, I mean, maybe they're, you know, fallen angels. And some people think ghosts are, say, the, um, like, you know, then you get into the Nephilim where you have the fallen angels who have mated with the human women, as it talks about in Genesis 6. So they're not necessarily God-created. So when they die, their soul has nowhere to go. So they wander the earth.

Interesting.

Have you—

do you have any, uh, do you have any ghost encounters, paranormal? Have you ever run into any of that?

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

Wow.

And I— but I've had The weirdest thing that I had, I lived in an old house. This was the house I was living in when I started comedy in Nashville. It was built in the 1800s. And my— I was in a downstairs room by this point. My wife had moved in. We were still dating, but we were in bed together. And these doors, the rooms were real echoey, and all the doors would kind of make a clicking sound when you opened it. And I was in bed and I kind of heard the clicking sound. And in my mind, I was totally chill. I was like, oh, my roommates come to tell me something. But my roommates never would come into my room at night and tell me something. But I look up and there's like a shadowy figure at the foot of the bed. And I kind of like move back and then it's gone and it's over. And it was— It's terrifying, but I, I almost in such a weird kind of dream state just dismiss it and then think about it later. Now, I told, I told that on the Blurry Creatures podcast, and my, uh, my old roommate says his girlfriend had a couple of weird experiences in the house like that where she thought she saw a shadowy figure in the living room.

And, and so much so that she thought it was a person that she asked if they needed help. Weird stuff.

She asked if it needed help?

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

You were on the Blurry Creatures pod? They're local, they're around here too.

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

I've had shit happen.

Yeah?

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

Yeah.

And, um, so me and my wife stayed there a couple of times. We used to go— well, actually, the first time we stayed there, we were looking for— we, we came up here from Florida and we looked like, I don't know, we spent like a year looking for a place. We couldn't afford anything. And, uh, and, um, we came up like 8 different trips and just kept getting outbid by people from California.

Oh yeah.

And, uh, I had given up. I was like, it's not gonna happen. I was like, let's just go, let's just go get a cabin in the woods and enjoy it, and then we'll just figure out a different place in Florida to move or something. And we stayed in— so we rented this old cabin out in the woods, Civil War era cabin. And, uh, and I woke up, I, I heard this thing banging on the walls at like 2 in the morning or whatever time it was. And I was like, I woke up and I'm like, woke my wife up and she's like, ah, it's probably just an animal. I'm like, that, they're probably a squirrel or a raccoon. I'm like, squirrels don't do that on the side of the wall. And then, uh, we did like this survival series once, and, uh, we used it as, uh, kind of like a set or, you know, uh, to film in. And it was me, uh, a guy that films for us, Tim, and, um, there was a bunch of us. My COO was out there, my old marketer was out there, my wife was out there.

Uh, and then this guy Adam that used to do IT stuff for us, and we went— so I had them do this survival challenge where they had like, I can't remember, 30 minutes and a budget to go into Bass Pro and pick whatever they, whatever they could find to survive for the end of the world, you know?

Okay.

And then we went back to the cabin to grade it all, and we had— we started having all these electrical problems. And in the middle of the debrief, on the camera. You could hear— it sounded like cowboy boots upstairs. There was a loft, like a spiral staircase loft, which you could look down, you know what I mean? It wasn't a separate room, it was a loft. And we had just heard these, like, cowboy boots, footsteps going across the floor. And you can see me in the video, I, I look up and I'm like— Looked like I just saw a ghost. And everybody— and then the 2 guys I was grading also look up and like look at me at the exact same moment. And so we immediately— I was like, we got to get out of here. And, uh, and, uh, we pulled the footage and you can hear static in the, in the audio instead of the footsteps. And, uh, I called my best friend to tell him about it because you can't tell that many people about it. They think you're crazy. Now I don't care.

Yeah.

But, um, They pulled the— they, uh, he's like, pull up the, uh, just— he's like, I'm just curious, pull up the Airbnb reviews. And sure as shit, like 30% of the reviews are like, don't bang on the walls, they bang back. Don't show up after dark. Like, it was, it was, it was like, oh shit, so I'm not the only one that dealt with this. We did another one.

See, that stuff's scary though, dude, right?

We did another one.

We were—

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

Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, no, I don't wanna do this. Yeah.

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

And, um, like the beginning of a horror movie type stuff.

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

Yeah.

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

And your wife had said they communicate through—

Yeah, like, like 5 minutes, like as we're pulling through, as we're like going up the driveway to this place, I'm like, no, but this isn't happening.

What did she say? Did she—

She just— she's— she looked at me and she knew exactly. She's like, yeah, okay, maybe this was a bad idea.

Yeah, because— but yeah, because if you love it and even she's into it, it's like— and then you're gone and now, you know, stuff's going on. Yeah, I mean, I, I can't do it.

No way.

No.

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

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

Yeah, me too.

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

I'm with you.

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

I know it's real. Yeah, like, yeah, now so many things have happened to me that I, I, it's— I know for a fact it's all real.

I mean, I've heard people in South Carolina tell me that in Charleston, you know, being such an old city, they've There's stories of like these Civil War houses where they, they would see a guy dressed in like a Civil War uniform. They, they were like at an old— I guess they were working at an old Civil War hospital or something, I don't know. But they saw a guy, it seemed like he was dressed in a Civil War uniform. Just really creepy stuff. Yeah. My dad has a house where over the years he's, he's, uh, he's bought a couple houses near him. He lives way out in the country. And one of the houses, when he bought it, they had it— the closet had— you would open the closet and it had a stairwell in the closet going up to the attic. And you— there was no access to it except through the closet.

Oh.

And he said that the story was way back, this family had a kid with Down syndrome. And they were like— it was like back at that time, it was like a shame. You know? So they kept the kid in the attic. And like, my dad rented the house to people after that, and he redid it to where the attic was now rooms, and he had a stairwell coming down. But people would have all kinds of accounts. This one girl said she was sitting on the bed, and there was like an imprint that another person was sitting next to her. And she said she brushed it away, and it came back. Now, all these people, who knows if it's true, but they said that the faucets would drip, the ceiling fans would turn on out of nowhere, that they would never do anything to anyone, but you were always just hearing and seeing things. Very crazy stuff.

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

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

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

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

Me neither. No way. Never have.

No.

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

Jeez.

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

Yeah.

But, but, uh, yeah, anyways, that was a good tangent.

Well, though, you know, that kind of stuff said, you know, I, I, uh, you know, I recently found out that like, like my, my dad was born in 1947, but he was the youngest of, of his siblings, and his dad was born in 1900. And that, uh, my dad was drafted for Vietnam but had— he had a heart murmur And so he was denied because of his physical. And then his brother, his oldest brother, was in World War II, which I just think it's crazy that brothers, one would be in World War II and one would get drafted for Vietnam. But my uncle was— said he— well, I never talked to him. He died in— he was born in '26, but he died at 56, 50-something like that, '58. And, uh, I met him as a child, but he, uh, said he was in a, uh, you know, he had a Purple Heart. He said he was in, in combat. And it's just like, it's, uh, I don't know, it's wild to think. My other uncles were in the Air Force, but my, my grandfather was too young for World War I, too old for World War II.

So they like something like that. And so my direct line, and then even I got arrested before getting into the Army. We've somehow all avoided military, but all my other— my uncles and my— were all in the military.

Interesting.

I don't really know the point of that, but I, I just— my, my, my cousin sent me— she found my, uh, my aunt's Bible. My aunt was, you know, in her 90s when she passed away and had all these names and dates written down. And then I, I did, uh, a few Air Force shows, and I went— I ended up doing a show at the Air Force base that one of my uncles was based at, which is, uh, Um, in, in Wichita. Now I can't think of the base, but in Wichita, Kansas. And I've done a few shows at Air Force bases.

Very cool.

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

And that's cool.

I think those are fun.

What's the next tour for you? Are you going on again?

Yeah, I do. I'm, I'm all, you know, this, you know, depending on when this comes out, I mean, but I'm, you know, as, as we're sitting here, I'm, um, in 2 days I'm going to, uh, Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a corporate gig, and then I'm off to basically Chicago for a casino gig, and then I'm doing another casino gig in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the rest of the year is all my theater which I'm calling the Neighborhood Guy Tour because I'm, you know, I lived in a neighborhood and I wrote a few jokes about it. I hate coming up with a tour name because I'm basically, I'm like, I'm just doing shows. But in order to package it and, you know, we need a poster and we need a name. So, you know, but I got a few jokes about living in the neighborhood and— but all my jokes are just everyday stuff. It's basically like, you know, deep down I'm sort of a weird guy, I guess. My mind works in a weird way. So I have an everyday scenario that then I turn into some sort of a tangent that takes a, takes a different road, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, you know, I got, um, I always like breaking down country songs. Now I'm working on the Garth Brooks song That Summer. I think that's fun to talk about. Uh, you know, we don't really know how old they were. He says, uh, he says he was a teenager and she was a lonely widowed woman, but We don't know. A teenager is 13 to 19, so who knows? And she could be any age, you know. Like I say, you know, I say this song's in the '90s. I say if she's set— if he's 17 and she's 40, that's pretty cool, right? This was the '90s. But if he's 15 and she's 80, this is a different song. And we don't know.

Oh shit.

And I think that's fun. I love— because I'm like, I love this song. It's a good song, like, just like all the songs. Uh, you know, 5 O'Clock Somewhere, I did a full breakdown on that, and, uh, that, that song's great. I love it. Uh, you know, I did, uh, the latest special I did, uh, on Wet Heat, I did Garth Brooks', uh, Hard Working Man song. Also a song came out in the '90s. I had the album. And, uh, I did, and that, that joke did very well for me on its own. And I got to meet Brooks and Dunn and talk to them. And, uh, for me, it's like, that's what's so crazy about it. Like, I'm, uh, you know, it's like I'm now meeting all these country singers from the '90s that I was huge fans of because I'm like making fun, making fun of their songs essentially. And they love it.

I'll bet that's something they get a kick out of, those bits.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like, I remember singing Brooks and Dunn songs when I was a little kid. They had that song, their first song was Brand New Man. And it's basically about a guy who's been running around with women and now he's met this woman and he wants to change his life for her. And I'm like listening to this at 10 years old, like, I'm ready to turn my life around too. I'm ready to settle down with a woman. 'Cause this song's so good, you know. But, uh, I don't know, it's fun. I mean, that's what's great about Nashville is like, I'm doing— I'm doing the Opry. I've gotten to do the Opry over 40 times, and I'm like, I love country music, but I can't sing, I can't play music. Who would have ever thought I'd be doing the Opry? Now, you know, I'm kind of— I'm kind of friends with some of these guys, you know.

I'm—

we're not And, you know, Trace Adkins, I've gotten to hang out with him on a tour bus for a while. And we were supposed to do a state fair together, but it was storming. So we were just sitting on his bus waiting to see if the storm would let off for long enough. And, uh, you know, I'm listening to Trace Adkins stories, which I think is great. And Jamie Johnson has sort of become a buddy, and he was at a show of mine recently, and we hung out. And Tracy Lawrence came to my show, and I'm like, This is just all unbelievable to me.

That's cool, man.

You know, that is cool.

How about the book?

Well, the book, uh, I, I like, right? I, uh, you know, it wasn't my idea to write a book. I'm not the kind of guy that's going, people need to hear my life. But I got an offer to write a book, uh, from Simon& Schuster, which is a, a big publisher. And I was like, oh, this is great. And then I wrote the book. I wrote the whole book. And then they, they read it and they go, all right, let's get a ghostwriter in here. And, uh, but I just think what they wanted to do was they want— they— to me, I was a little offended, but to me, they like— basically, they want the book to be written in a way that they're used to their readers reading, I guess. Um, I don't know. Uh, so, uh, so I wrote it and then a ghostwriter came in. And we started working together, and I really liked him. I really liked this guy, and I think he did a really good job. So I wanted to include his name on the COVID so we've done that. Uh, and, uh, and also I wanted them to know, uh, you know, if there's a joke you don't like, I'll blame it on him.

And, uh, uh, no, he's great. And, and I think the book is really good. I think he did a good job of taking my stories and, and writing them in a— you know, I'm a bit of a rambler. And I think he wrote them in a way that really, really works well. And I like what he did. I like what we did. And I think, you know, I got a few— I got a few secrets in there that I think are fun. It'll be a fun reveal.

And the—

I don't know, I think the book's going to be cool. It's cool to have a book. And now I'll be a published author. So maybe after that, you know, I'll write some books.

Did you enjoy the experience?

I, uh, if I'm being completely honest, I didn't enjoy it, uh, the way that I thought I would enjoy it because I like comedy because I get to do comedy exactly my way.

Mm-hmm.

I write a joke, I go try it. If it doesn't work, I adjust it until it does. And then, and then I do it the way I want. With a book, you know, there's other people involved. And I, you know, it's, it's not a slight on them because they're doing their job. Their job is to make sure this book is the best that it can be when it goes out. And, uh, you know, I'm looser. I'm looser about things. But I, I, I am glad that I did it. I'm thankful for them for, for offering this to me, and I'm glad we did it. But they worked me to death. And I always tell people, my comedy friends that I have that are on the road constantly, I go, what are you doing? Like, we didn't— did you get into comedy to work this hard? It's like, yeah, you gotta work to get there, but once you get there, now enjoy it. They're working nonstop. I go, we're comedians. What are you doing?

Yeah.

And I mean, maybe I'm lazy, but I'm like, I used to work, you know, when I sold pesticides, sometimes I was working 50, 60 hours a week. I was a salaried employee. The money never went up no matter what. And I was like, well, if I can get out of this— I used to have a joke. And this joke was, a friend of mine asked me one time, he goes, if you, for $1 million, would you eat a piece of poop the size of a fun-size Snickers bar? Right? And the joke was, yeah, of course I would. I don't wanna do— the joke's on making that fudge, if you wanna hear it. But it was because I hated my job. And then once I started doing comedy, even when I was making a little bit of money, I was like, no way, no way would I do it. But it was because I like my life. It's not about the money. It's about finding a life that you enjoy.

Mm-hmm.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

And it's like that joke is— it's a timeless question. Would you eat this for a million dollars? Would you do this for a million dollars? And the answer almost my whole life was yes. But now— but even, you know, now I've made some money and I'm like, well, of course— they're like, of course you'd say no now. But no, I mean, when I was— had 300,000 miles on a car with no air conditioner driving across the country, I'm still saying no because I like this.

I don't think you're lazy. I think you're smart. You know, it takes a lot. It's a lot to— there's a lot of offers out there, you know, especially for somebody like you to be able to, to be able to say no and turn some of them down. I mean, to be with your family and enjoy life, I think that's, it's really cool.

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

Yeah.

I mean, I got 3 kids. Sometimes I'm sitting in my chair in the morning, they're all 3 sitting with me, and I go, this is awesome. And my son's, you know, my son's 3 and my 5-month-old is A boy, and it's like, you know, he's beating him up. And I go, why are you doing that to the baby? But he's just, he's just playing with his brother. He's like ready to play. He's like, stop being a baby and play with me.

That's cool.

He's ready to rough him up out here. And I go, he's still a baby right now, okay? Let's not smother him with the pillow right now. But my daughter, who's 5, is— she's, I mean, she's ready to be a mom to the baby already. She's, she's so sweet to him. I mean, kids are the best.

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

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

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

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

Thank you. Thank you. God bless.

Yeah. Thank you.

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