Transcript of #671 - Casey Rocket

Today's guest is a stand-up comedian. His, uh, his origins are mysterious. Yes, but you'll know him from his wildly popular Kill Tony appearances. Uh, he's on the road now. You can see him live. Um, there's no one like him. There's no one like him. I had a great time with today's guest, the Sultan of Riff. Mr. Casey Rocket. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm having like male hot flashes or whatever.

Sure, men of a certain age, every age.

Every age, maybe.

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

Yeah, dude, I think these days things have gotten crazy. You'll see a little kid having a hot flash or whatever, he'll be like, you know, you'll see a little kid just like, go like, just looking for like a faucet. People are like, they're— people are trying to do anything they can to cool these kids off. Yeah, yeah, to help themselves.

Sure. Yeah, a spigot.

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

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

Yes.

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

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

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

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

And, uh, the engine just could not function like that.

Yeah. I think, well, when you're pushing that much high-dollar dairy and you're pulling it behind you and you have a fucking probably a 7th or 8th grade reading level driver, you know, the—

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

God, if queso made us freaking smarter, God, can you even imagine?

Can you imagine the mental bandwidth I would have right now? Because I had all queso breakfast. Yeah, so frozen solid liquid. Yeah.

Oh wow.

So you get like, um, what is it, like a fudge pop of like frozen queso fresco. And then you go like, okay, you go chili con carne, um, pure liquid. So you leave that on the dashboard and then you go with the gas, which is, um, just like a handful of like Ritz.

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

Galaxy Gas.

Yeah, yeah, you hit a couple of those, brother.

Oh, I got a stomachache.

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

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

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

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

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

Too much of a good thing.

Too much dashboard queso.

Yum.

That's our band name.

Like the string cheese incident.

Oh God, dude. I used to follow Widespread some. Did you? Really? Yeah.

I think I know, well, not Widespread, but I know someone in the Tuskegee Trucks band.

Do you? Dwayne Johnson?

Allman? Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

Dwayne Allman.

Yeah.

I've always wanted a last name that was a nut. Bring him up. Dwayne Allman.

Peter Pistachio.

Or a P. Or like Ronnie Garbanzo or whatever. Like a bean, maybe.

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

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

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

Melissa, what's the catch?

I'm gonna teach you how to play Southbound. All right.

Casey Rocket, good to see you, man.

Good to see you. Thanks for talking, Queso.

Oh yeah, dude, it's almost— well, I misread your name earlier and that's what even had me thinking about it. I thought it was Queso Rocket.

Sure, yeah. Queso Object Permanence Rocket.

There should be, um, like a Latino version of you that comes out named Queso Rocket, and I go, this person's an imposter, and he's like, no, I'm not.

Oh, he's all liquid.

So sick. God, I hope we're okay.

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

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

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

I mean, he would have like— he was out there, but his kid was singing with him, kind of, you know, like when they get the kids out there and he's sitting over there and somebody just kind of spraying water on him, almost like he's like a, like a, like one of those Indian plants or whatever.

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

Were you really?

Yeah. And did they like—

was he on an on an IV and stuff while he was up there?

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

Really?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure.

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

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

Yeah.

Yeah.

To get a Carlos and Charlie shirt on the way home. Can you bring it up? You haven't seen this thing, dude? No. I don't even know if we can play this or not.

Hopefully it's not copyrighted.

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

Oh, okay, so I am into stuff like this. Yeah.

Have you heard this?

No.

So it's basically— it's music pretty much for the learning disabled. Okay. Which is where we are. There's a whole new genre of music for the learning disabled.

Sure. It helps with like shapes and colors.

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

The whole plane claps when we land.

He's doing the Boot Scootin' Boogie.

Yeah, so it's like spiritual dyslexia. Yes.

Well, that's exactly what it is. And I think it's— I want to say it's Baptist-based. I'm not sure, but it is. There's some—

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

Oh, it's— you, you know, sometimes you wake up and your legs are all soggy and you're like, you know, how do I dry these puppies out? Who did this?

Who did this and why?

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

How could it be, dude?

It couldn't have been that many times.

No, once or twice you go, all right, I've been making some mistakes. Yeah, 4, 5, 10 times, you get up to double digits, you go like, I'm being persecuted.

Yeah, definitely.

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

Yeah, dude, it's obvious that they're sneaking in through our broken window downstairs near the kitchen. Yeah, they're coming up, they're Pissing on your boy. Okay.

I've talked to the landlord. He won't answer. It goes to Malheur Daymond.

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

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

They're like, we could replace the sheets. That'll be $1,100. And you're like, goddamn. I'll just sit here in poverty and piss.

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

Oh dude, that, that is what we need is— yeah, this is what we're gonna get to because the society's getting weird. Can we agree?

Sure, I'm the first— I'm the second to admit that. You were the first.

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

Okay, yeah, what happened to the nuclear family?

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

Windows up. Yeah. Ruins the resale value.

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

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

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

Yes. Yeah.

Because it leaves you in a spot, you know?

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

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

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

Yeah, it's a different time, man. The zygotes are different. Yeah, I'll say that. Sure. You've seen a— have you seen a, uh, CAT scan of a woman's belly recently?

Like a recent, like an up-to-date CAT scan? I've been looking at like old ones to see how the technology has progressed.

One woman, one, one woman had a frisbee and an 8-ball in there. That was it. Yeah, so whatever is living in there, or part-time, or whatever is keeping its luggage there, sure, okay, obviously likes to party at the park, you know.

I'm partying. That was a great WCW pay-per-view, the Party at the Park.

Was that, was that one?

I know they did the Bash at the Beach, so I could only hope that they did the Party at the Park.

Oh, I hope they did too. And it was like kind of a, it was a beautiful day, it was by a river, right? They hung like a, uh, briefcase full of the world's like the finest charcuterie board in the world, right? They hung the finest charcuterie board in the world up and you had to climb up a ladder, right? And then you had to get 3 strong kids to— and you had to climb up one of their backs, right? And you didn't know which one. And the winner—

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

Yeah, because they kept their shirts on. Yeah.

So it's purely intuition, which—

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

Yeah. And if you do it too long, also Booker T is going to hit you with a chair. So that was like a good thought experiment. That was like the Stanford Prison Experiment in action.

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

Good to see you. Happy to be here.

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

Yeah, I was in Huntsville.

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

I know.

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

Yeah, actually, it's funny. Before I came here, I took a shower, a Gregorian Greco-Roman shower, and which is, of course, a cheese Danish that I put in a bunch of socks and I kind of strain it out over my head. But I wrote on my hand, I wrote on my hand last night. I don't know why, but I wrote Santa Cruz or Santa Fe, one of the Santas. So that doesn't really answer your question, but I did just look at my hand. But if the question was, did you just look at your hand? The answer is yes.

Okay. Okay.

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

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

I do.

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

It is. It is quite unusual actually. The Heliums aren't set up like that. Even, you know, Zany's Nashville, Zany's Chicago. Zinni's Rosemont's kind of lit though.

Is it?

It's lower to the ground.

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

Sure. Yeah.

I'm going to get out there because she would want me to see it. That's why.

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

She would want me to see it, man. Lockheed Martin.

Oh, is that where they're based? Yeah, Lockheed Martin there. That's where they reverse engineer the anti-gravity technology. So, uh-oh, apparently that's where some of the scientists are going missing. You know, those scientists.

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

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

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

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

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

Disappearing, yeah, that gives me more pause that we're a part of some like greater like neo-noir detective thing. Yeah, them Just dying. I mean, people die every day.

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

Yeah. Well, somebody let the door open and the wrong dogs came home. Yeah, dude.

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

yeah, flash flood.

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

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

Yeah, yeah.

I'll be sitting there, back there with a good book, just going, God dang, he's right, he's right.

You'll poke your head out of a changing room, be like, God, never had a chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a fucking— never had a chance, bro.

Yeah, if you slick somebody up, like, and I've said this for, for months, I was there when you said it. Yeah, if you slick somebody up good enough As anything can be a slip and slide. So a staircase, most homes have a staircase, so if they're slick enough, bye bye bye bye grandpa, and he's gone.

You can barely even, you know, or you try to use his real name, then Henry, you know, like that's the craziest thing. Now a Black grandpa, they'll, they'll mill around a little, but even the, the stream is even gonna get them, you know, you would think. Sure.

Well, yeah, they, you know, they're probably more worldly and, um, they'll see this, they'll see this dream maybe before the white grandpa, but either way, when the flood comes, come on, man, you don't stand a chance, baby.

That's the Bible working.

Yeah, that's Noah. Yeah, the piss flood.

That's it, brother. Drip, drip.

That's scary to think about.

It's scary to think about, dude. Oh. You're living— anyway, you're living in Chicago now, huh?

Yeah, I moved from Austin in December and I lived in St. Louis for 6 months and now I've been settling in Chicago.

Yeah. How's it been there?

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

Oh, yeah.

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

Very fair.

Yeah.

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

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

And that was 2021, was it, or no?

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

Okay.

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

Yeah, that's wild, dude. Congratulations, man. Thanks for getting in over there. Are you excited about it?

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

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

Yeah, there's some good like memoir type books that I really liked. One of them is a book called Permanent Midnight by a guy named Jerry Stahl that they made into a movie with Ben Stiller. Um, another great one is Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan, who used to be the lead singer of the Screaming Trees.

Oh wow.

So yeah, some memoirs and then a lot of like screenplays. Like obviously I'm a big fan, as most people are, of Paul Thomas Anderson, who did Magnolia and One Battle After Another.

PTA.

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

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

Oh, Sour Patch Kids.

You think? Oh, because they're kids.

And there's nothing more rotten than a kid.

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

Sure.

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

You might not like it, little piglet.

Yeah, so I think there's a lot of that that goes on. Sure. When you combine stuff like that, there's also some candies that some people can't even get through. Like, we had kids that couldn't handle Gobstoppers, whatever, and they had to move to another school. We'd have, you know, and people were like, you know what I'm saying? Like, they just couldn't— they couldn't figure it out.

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

Oh, they call them the Berlin Ball. You know, that's why, because you just— there's so much to go through.

There's so—

you have to be willing to do it.

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

So yeah. So it's your choice, bucko. Yeah. You know, pick your battles.

I don't mean one, Mr.

Grinch. You know, that's what's going on. Short answer: yes, several popular candies formerly marketed under the Wonka brand, like Nerds and Laffy Taffy, have recently tested positive for very high levels of arsenic. Thank you, Perplexity. Which is a persistent forever contaminant in the environment and can accumulate in the body over time.

Is it good?

It's not good. It's not. Is it worth it though?

Sure. Yeah.

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

Oh, inside the freezer in a fridge that's unplugged. So it's planting this seed of like, this is getting— so it's like, so like my body's telling me this is getting colder. Yeah. But my heart of hearts is like, brother, you know, this is room temp.

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

Sure.

We'd fill the glove box with Charleston Chews, right? So the cop pulled you over, you open that, he sees them all fall out, and he goes, "Oh, sorry, fellas.

Be on your way.

Sorry, boys." Yeah, it was just like, it changed the level of anger and curiosity of the cop.

Sure.

It put it a little bit more of a joy.

Yeah.

It was a little bit more, "Oh wow, there's piñatas in here." Yeah, these are just a couple of candy guys out for a midnight stroll.

Well, the original tagline for Sour Patch Kids was, there is no greater sin than the sin of being born. So that is powerful.

Well, it's something. I remember Sugar Honkies Unite had that. Who had that slogan? Okay. Because that was a big one.

Isn't there a candy called Sugar Daddies?

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

The Sugar Union.

Yeah.

Oh no, they're like the Pinkertons.

Sugar daddies, that was it, man.

Oh, they were a thing. And then you eat a couple of them and you go, I shouldn't be eating this. Yeah, you have, you have one sugar daddy, you go, I shouldn't be eating that.

You're right. And then they gave the babies away. There was— here's the craziest part, and this is you going back to the nuclear family breaking down. There's never a mother involved, you know. No, it was sugar daddy, sugar babies.

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

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

It was like I, Robot.

Yeah, it was very similar to some of that, dude. It was kind of like Her with Joaquin Phoenix. It was just a challenged man dancing around in a mall, willing to dry hump the air to get a little sugar in his system.

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

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

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

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

Sure.

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

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

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

Here. Yeah, they don't know any better.

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

I have cellular mitosis. Yeah, if you eat— what is— there's a limit on the package. If you eat more than 5, you get Osmosis Jones.

Oh really?

Yeah, so you get like a little guy like fighting slime crime.

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

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

That's hilarious, dude.

But that's a world we live in, I guess, if we're really here. Yeah, if we're not just an interference pattern on a different plane of consciousness.

Let's take a call. Um, okay, let's take a call from ourselves, man. Shopify. You heard me, Shopify. It's hands down the best place to start and grow a business these days. If you're trying to start your own thing, you need to show them. You gotta show them. Shopify is the platform where you really own everything— your store, your community. Plus, Shopify gets your products in front of shoppers where they are: Google, YouTube, TikTok Shop, the Shop app, even ChatGPT. We use them for our merch store. They help Shopify. They do But Shopify made me realize, oh, I can actually do this. And once I got that feeling, I can focus my efforts on other things. Thought about starting a business? This is your sign. Get started at shopify.com/teo. That's shopify.com/teo. Y'all ever think about how something got its start? Like Mountain Dew, for example. I always thought it just sort of appeared one day, you know? Just sitting in a cooler, just a little newborn can of beverage glory. But nope, it's actually— it's, it's right out of Tennessee. Yes, it is. Real place, real people. Two brothers working tirelessly to nail that citrus kick that we all love today.

Appalachian roots, baby. It's bold, it's loud, it's got that 'I'll figure it out myself' attitude. That attitude is still in it today. Still bold, still unmistakable, still Dew. It's an American original that's been tasting great since '48, which feels right, man. It just, it does, because this, this ain't just a drink, it's a hometown story in a can. Yes sir, right here. Next time you grab a Dew, just know it's more than just a drink. It's an American original. Mountain Dew, tasting great Since '48. Um, do you— so you, you've taken a break from comedy when you moved out?

I did, yeah. I took like— well, I did some gigs. Um, I did some shows with Fiona Colley, our friend Fiona.

She's so funny. And, uh, Matt is her husband.

Yes. I don't know if I've met him, but I guess I'll meet him tonight, probably. That's Aeneas. And then Dylan Carlino. Do you know Dylan Carlino?

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

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

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

Yeah.

You know, there's also dark sorcerers that are involved with it, but it's exactly where we are in the world and it's great. It's a great show. Did you feel like being attached to that became too much or like, how did you handle like the popularity and celebrity? Because I would say you were one of the most popular guys that kind of came through that system. Um, did it feel like that? Because, um, even in my own life and recently, like, I've, you know, like in the past year I've thought a lot about like ego and what is popularity or mean and the value of it and stuff like that, you know?

Yeah, well, I think I started to assign some of my self-worth, some of my self-worth in the opinions of others. Not that I would never look at stuff online, but I guess I got too wrapped up in my sense of self, like the poltergeist of self, like what all of this meant, because all I ever did was stand-up for years and years and years. All I did, 7 days a week. And then if it wasn't going well, then I didn't know who I was, you know? So, yeah, more so than the Kill Tony thing, that, you know, gave me a platform and it allowed me to do all this stuff. I just tried to take, take the good and, and not think about anything else. But yeah, I was just really wrapped up in all this pressure that I was either misinterpreting or putting on myself, and I didn't like it. I didn't enjoy doing it anymore.

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

Yeah.

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

Yeah, I felt like— and, you know, I try to improvise so much, riff, um, some have said, many have said, and if I wasn't able to catch my thoughts perfectly— and that opens the door for so much pressure on myself, where I was thinking of myself, maybe rightfully so, maybe not, duality, yes, laws of polarity, that I had so much potential. And so every night I would go out and I would try to I want to use 100% of my potential on stage. And when I set myself up for that, there's no way I can possibly reach that, which makes it fun to keep going, makes it always exciting. But I will never be satisfied with it.

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

Yeah. Which a little bit of that is good. It's good to strive. And, you know, comedy is a— it's a lifelong thing if that's what you choose to do with your life. But I came to realize And probably in December that there has to be more to life than this. There has to be more than a performative affect. I have to be worth more than what I think I'm worth to my friends, just as a performer. And if my whole world is wrapped up in the business of show business, then I am doomed to go spiritually bankrupt. There's nothing that will ever be enough. So yeah, it was really nice. I made a lot of friends that weren't comedians for the first time in a long time.

Wow.

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

Yeah.

And if we had found a soccer ball at any point in the beginning of the year, I could have kicked it around. And it's— and that kept me going. So I would wake up every day and I would make myself a promise, and it was firm, and it was: if I run into an unattended soccer ball today, or one I could borrow just for the time being, I will kick it back and forth with whoever's around.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

Oh, good. And it comes with a chocolate, which is ironic because that's what got us into this position.

Exactly, dude.

You're like, okay, I feel like this is cyclical. Yeah, yeah, great. This is what happens when there's no free healthcare. Exactly.

That's where we are right there. Two different women, um, and both of those were drawn by Christina Mariani as well. I want to let everybody know that on an Etch-a-Sketch, which is unbelievable.

I've seen Christina do freehand, which is— if you've never seen someone freehand draw, I highly recommend it.

But yeah, well, she's in that— she's in that new music Musical. It's a one-person musical.

Yeah, it's a one-woman show. She's doing it at Edinburgh. I've seen it. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's by Statesboro.

Yeah, it's in the Delta. Yeah, it's the male version of Statesboro.

Sure. Yeah, it's Statesboro by way of Valdosta. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get— that's where I went to college. I went to college at Georgia Southern.

Did you go over there?

Yes, by Savannah.

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

Yeah.

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

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

Yes, summer scarves too, which is a rare—

oh my God, you know what they say, summer scarves bring winter tears.

Um, and that's George Orwell as well.

Yes, that's 1984. That's so Orwellian. Truly a demerouge of, uh, existential pessimism. But No, I never— I didn't. And I'm happy that we are bringing up the tenets of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But it has been— it's been a crazy summer. No, I wish I went to SCAD. I didn't have artistic inclinations until I was probably 20. That's when I started doing stand-up. But no, I didn't know. I was more into boozing. So it was the only school I applied to. And they call it States Vegas. And it had some great bars out there.

Good bar scene.

Good bar scene.

Seen.

A lot of field parties, parties in the woods, mudding.

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

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

Is that like near, uh, uh, LaGrange? No, it starts with an L or a different letter. It's Toccoa. That's what I'm thinking of, with a T.

Beautiful little You, like Gainesville, by like Forsyth County, so like up there on 400.

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

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

Oh, it's not a busy area?

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

Oh, they got free helium up there?

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

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

Oh, sure. Yeah.

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

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

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I have had instances of like ego death, either chemically induced or just being in a really low period of depression where where, yeah, I look around and I go, what is all— what is all this for? You know? But if I did have any answer, it would be that the macro mirrors the micro, so that in the little victories of my life, I figure out my greater purpose. Like, so it's easier for me now because I've gotten used to it. The first 6 months of this year of not running around so much, it's— I've been so— I've been so much happier where I, I'm just a really stressed out guy, you know. I get— I wear the world really heavily. So if I have to do anything, like even just like go to a local showcase, it used to drive me nuts. It ruined my whole day, just the stress and knowing that it's coming.

It's hard to operate. Yeah, some people seem to be able to operate kind of freely even if there's something looming, you know. Yeah, like me, I'm already like, fuck, man, my marriage, what will my wedding day be like, that shit's gonna be— it's gonna be hectic, and my— if my wife's there, she's gonna be pissed or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Like, but that shit'll weigh me down. It's like on a regular Thursday afternoon, dude, not to mention whatever else I have to do. Or sometimes like— yeah, that's such a cool way to say that. Yeah, sometimes I just feel like I wear the world heavy, and some people it just seems to be like this, like, summer sol, that, you know. Yeah, that it's nothing. Like, it seems to be like just like a little baby kite landed on their shoulder and they just brush it off, you know. You know?

Yeah.

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

I know.

You know?

Yeah.

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

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

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

Sure, like a Firestone.

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

Hostess.

Yes.

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

And she's standing there and there's 3 tires right by her, and I'm like, hey baby, let's hit the road, you know?

Like, I got one in the trunk.

Yeah, I got one in the chamber, honey, you know?

My car is on cinder blocks right now. You got 3, I got one. Let's start a life.

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

I got a pair of Cedar tires out back, pair of Cedar Sinis.

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

That is one of the better— I wish all places of business had something comparable to a Lunk Alarm.

They used to just yell "Fatty" or whatever, you know? Or, you know, or— yeah, they would yell something like that, you know? "Bad bones, bone structure." Yeah, they used to yell "Steroid boy" or whatever, but now— there we go. They still have it.

Dude, he gets it within 20 feet of a Planet Fitness, they're hitting the Lunk Alarm.

Just outside Chicago Friday night. Just got done training some chest. But you know what?

Jay Cutler from the Chicago Bears. Oh, my dear God.

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

what? Strong and in good shape. Yeah, they hit that like the doomsday clock was at 1 minute to midnight.

Yeah, dude, this is some people's Y2K. Dude.

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

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

Um, yeah, it's planting bad seeds.

But cedar cyanide, dude, those If you got cedar cyanide wheels on a wagon, yeah, that was the worst, dude.

It was, yeah, it was terminal. It was like having, uh, fleas like within your like roost. Yeah, yeah, that's so brutal. It's a fox in a chicken coop situation, so they just go wild.

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

No, it's all we have. If you want to go take the route through the Sierra Nevadas, you're going to have to get this before the fall comes, like the Donner Party.

Yeah, yeah.

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

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

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

Yeah. Look, we are becoming new slaves. That's what I've been— I've been saying that. Oh man. Get the fuck out.

You're on a chain gang.

Yeah.

You're making license plates. That is just what the prison industrial complex is. So I am happy that there is a problem endemic to the state of Alabama that I'm happy we can bring up. There's a documentary called The Alabama Problem.

Is there?

Yeah, it's on HBO Max.

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

One about the death of the American mall?

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

I think I saw the trailer for it.

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

It's, it's enclosed, or is it closed?

Yes, it's not a lot there.

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

Well, that's just where we're going. It's like when, uh, this— oh, JCPenney closed its doors there. But, um, but yeah, that documentary is pretty good, man. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard. And BetterHelp's latest research confirms that. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Don't let that be you. Don't get discouraged. If something feels uncomfortable, speak up for yourself. You have a voice. You have a heart. There's a reason for that. Cut out the noise and do what's right for your own well-being. That's what I've done. BetterHelp can help. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And they do the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/theo. That's betterhelp.com/theo. Have you, have you kept in touch with a lot of the people from Austin still, or did you kind of like take like a break from the communication there?

Like, um, um, no, I still talked. I had to go back in May and I did my last show at Creek and Cave, and Creek's always been really great to me. So I, I'm going back on the 1st of— well, I'm going back soon. There's a special event. I don't want to spoil it, but I'm going back. So yeah, I talked to a lot of my really good friends from Mothership. You know, we were all door guys together, so I chat with them on the phone. And yeah, part of like changing my life, and I have no qualms in saying this, but I'm sober and I— and that's a part of my life. And part of that for me just means being there for my friends. So like every day I'll like call a friend and stuff that I would do, I guess, when I was younger in the pre-social media age, you know. So I'll call people and feel like all these kids are on their fucking phones now.

Yeah, I think that's popular.

Sure. But, but not— nobody calls anymore.

I agree. You know what, that's a good thought. Sometimes I've certainly gotten away from texting and I'd rather just send a voice note. I think that's better. At least if you can kind of get a feel what's going on. And even then, like, I will enjoy a call. And I think honestly some people appreciate it. It's like, yeah. And I think you just have to establish if you want, like, hey, that's where I'm at in my life. I want to hear my friend's voice, you know? Like, I want to know, I want to have some semblance just in what they're saying or how their energy is as to how they're really feeling because because that's what, that's what we're based on. You can't pick it up through text. It's pretty much impossible. So no, and that, that's just a little bit of the tuning of the dial. It's like where we're at, where the future's taking us. It feels kind of scary.

Yeah, some of that is lost. Yeah, yeah.

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

Yeah.

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

you know, I do that a lot when I'm driving. So you're saying you would daydream in a way that was like the last bastion of free speech, um, for a, um, mind of, uh— cut this part out. Cut this fucking part out.

Yeah, I mean, my shit would be pretty lit. Frederick Douglass would show up at some of my daydreams. Like, sure, there was always someone at the pulpit. Yeah, to let you know the type of energy that was there. It was life or death. There were trials that were going on.

Like, it was very Salem witchy and, you know, oh sure, it's like The Crucible. Keep that part.

Yeah, it was like The Crucible kind of meets McDonald's, kind of. Sure.

So if Grimace was like judge, jury, and executioner, which he often is in so many of our afterlives, as I've come to understand it, Grimace is like a tulpa and, um, of— he's like an amalgamation, like a transmogrification of Saint Michael. So is that what people are Yeah, he's like a figurehead for like this demigod we know as Saint Michael. And when he lets you in, it is just a big pool of creamy chili sauce.

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

That's him answering a prayer.

Okay, there you go, dude. But dude, this is where we're heading. People don't want to look at the signs that like, there are children who go to bed and they wake up in the morning and they'll have pissed the perfect shape of Grimace into their sheets. Moms are like, "Oh, that's nothing. It's just 100 nights in a row of that." Like, nobody's connecting the dots of where we're going.

No, like that you pissed the Shroud of Turin. Like, you pissed a perfect, exact Gollum of things come to pass.

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

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

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

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

I remember when we were in school and some kids didn't understand how the greater than or less than signs worked and we weren't allowed to kill those kids.

No.

And that always kind of made me upset.

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

Yeah, facts.

I don't know my times tables.

Oh yeah. Well, yeah.

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

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

Sure. Well, it's not a meritocracy.

You know, it isn't.

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

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

Oh yeah, when they— oh my God, me and my boys, we would sit down every Downton Abbey Tuesday.

It was good, dude.

It was so good.

The first fucking season of it, so good. God, I wanted to be a butler. I'd be a butler's son or whatever. Yeah.

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

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

This he told you in confidence?

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

Yeah, it's weird to see him like that, not sleeping, standing up in a closet, because, well, he was a stunt double in a lot of Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

No.

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

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

The guy who just won the contest?

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

Jim Carter.

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

Well, let's look that up. The Wilhelm scream. Say it again. You sure? That sounds like Wilhelm Memphis, you know? Where is that from?

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

Wow.

So yeah, that guy did that, and then I guess he had to go to court to get like, uh, his residuals from You really? So that scream, they're calling it the scream of hope. So it was one of the first famous screams of hope.

Are you serious?

So yeah, it's like a symbol.

It's like, how bad has it gotten?

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

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

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

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

He's a friend of Dorothy.

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

That's what they used to say.

Or yeah, he's a Toto owner.

Sure.

Yeah, people would say that. Have you seen that guy in He got a toto? Who goes on the streets and he's like, you think this guy's gay, man? Have you seen those videos?

No.

Oh my God.

Uh-oh.

Pull this up. This is worth watching, dude. This is one of the best things that's ever happened, I think. And it just goes to show how men are obsessed with pointing the 11th finger at each other.

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

Yeah.

Ah, sure.

You know what I'm talking about, Trevin?

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

No, but I would believe that.

I know, right?

And I hope that happens.

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

Well, here's what we should do.

One day in Austin that changed everything.

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

Oh my God, he's ripping a heater.

Fuck yeah, he is, dude.

Hands-free, pro-union, ripping a heater, bro.

He saved the whole freaking world.

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

He's hunting Gollums, dude.

Yeah, he's on the Nephilim. He's the Watcher.

Yeah, dude. Oh, definitely. He's got his ball certificates out. Can you— what did that say? Did it say anything else about him on that? That's crazy. And did you see him while you were there?

I have never seen something like this in person. It's by Evil Mopac. So this is— yeah, this is spellwork right here. This is deep, Elijah. Spellwork, I told you, equals magic. I fucking told you. This is an incantation.

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

Okay, Lovecraft, what are all these adjectives?

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

Come on. It was taken in September 2018 in Austin, Texas while attending the Fantastical Festival. He tried out the, uh, app-based rental scooter Lime for the first time while holding a cigarette.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

That is so cool. This is like pictures taken moments before tragedy.

Let's hope not. I mean, well, actually, it would be— he's fine, so it's not—

he avoided his destiny.

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

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

I don't want to do any spell work.

No, and we don't have to. And I, I don't do talismanic magic. It's my understanding neither does Elijah Woods, so But I saw you brought something.

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

Yeah, sure. So that's spare hair. So, um, that's hair care. Um, it's part of my self-care routine. So if anyone, while I'm talking to them, says like, hey, a big clump of your hair just fell out, you're ready to go. Yeah, I'll be like, oh, thank you. First of all, thanks for holding space for that. Um, second of all, do you have any Elmer's glue? So yeah, it allows me to kind of like keep my hairline like how I want it.

So Yeah, it looks great.

Thanks.

Yeah, and I think if someone mails you their hair and you care for it, it's everything. That's crazy.

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

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

Oh, that's so cool.

Let's play this video right here.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? You think other people going to think that? I think most people will, but I don't know.

Like, he gay or straight?

Nigga look like he gay in the bitch.

Nigga booty powered and shit.

Why you say that? That nigga got this little like gay outfit on like it's Halloween and shit. Like, what the fuck you trying to do, nigga?

All right, you gay or straight? I'm straight in the bitch.

You think other people going to think that? Like, they going to know that. Feel like he gay or straight?

Nigga gay as a bitch. Every time. That dumbass.

You gay or straight? Straight, bro.

What's up? You think other people going to think that?

Feel like he gay or straight? That's a small man. Why you say that? Because look at him.

You gay or straight?

Straight. You think other people think that? Better.

Feel like he gay or straight? That nigga is gay as fuck. Every time, dude. Look how this nigga is heated.

You get out straight.

I'm straight as a pencil.

Oh, you think other people gonna think that?

Hell yeah. You feel like he gay?

He could be bisexual.

Why you say that?

Everybody bisexual.

Nah, you get out straight.

I don't care what the fuck they think. Gay as fuck. What the fuck is he wearing?

Who is that? John Jones? Who is this?

That's Bones Jones.

Is that Indiana John Jones, dude? Who the fuck is that?

George Jones Jones.

That's good. That's good.

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

Yeah, I think you could do it, dude.

I think I could pull it off. I used to paint my nails and then I would go to rehab like a week later. It happened several times in my adult life. I would paint my nails, like, you know, twirling my hair, talking on a corded phone, like, paint my nails. And then I'd wake up like a couple days later and I was like, I need help. Yeah. I was like, I'm being fashion forward, but I am turning the clock back.

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

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

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

it's so hard to come to that conclusion for some of Yeah, well, I've struggled with those things since I was a kid, and I would have long stretches of sobriety. When I was younger, it would be alcohol. And then where I grew up in Georgia, it has— I was in high school during, like, the Purdue Pharmaceuticals, like, that, all that stuff.

Oh, really?

So a lot of my friends got addicted to, like, OxyContin and stuff like that. Um, so yeah, so like that, I was exposed to, um, drug use like that when I was younger. So, um, off and on, and mostly I would sometimes go back to it when I couldn't deal with pressure. You know, there's a lot of excuses for things like that. Um, but yeah, it had gotten to a point where I no longer wanted to do comedy. I no longer wanted to really do anything. I just felt like almost not like I had wasted my life because I I love what I do and I really like getting to meet people and I love making people happy. But it got to be too much when coupled with a habit that I had developed of various drugs and alcohol and things like that.

Yeah.

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

So you got to that point. Something has to change.

Yeah. I had resigned myself to the idea of a certain death and that did not scare me. It would have been— I looked at it at that point as some sort of like welcomed relief. Like I had gone past the point of of anyone being able to help me or me being able to help myself. And then when I did reach out and I did seek some help for that stuff, um, I realized that that's not what I wanted at all. What I really wanted was to figure out a better way to live.

Mm.

That I really just wanted to have some peace in my life that I knew, even in the throes of it, was not being given to me by drugs and alcohol. It was the opposite of that. It was making my life life a thousand times worse. And by, um, yeah, I've been able to cut so much guff out of my life, so much guff and slime. And I'm able to look around today and I know that, uh, I don't have any— I don't live in shame about my life. I don't do— I don't say things to things— I don't say things to people I don't mean. I don't hurt my friend's feelings. I can be a better partner. I can kick a soccer ball I can't. It's basically, it was soccer ball based. So I looked around and I was like, you know what this house is missing? Soccer ball. And then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I said, you're in no condition to kick a soccer ball. You're gonna hurt somebody. Um, but it's just really basic things, you know. I wanted to be involved again. I wanted to be in the stream of, of life.

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

I know, huh?

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

And make a commitment to take a break from something and do it, it's tough. Oh my gosh, it's tough for any of us.

We're all—

we're— there's so many ways to get addicted, to distract ourselves from us.

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

What team were you betting on too? I'll tell you one I bet on. On it.

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

Oh, bet.

I would do slots.

Oh, you do slots?

I do some spins, dude. $5 spin, have a slap at the pokies.

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

Congratulations pork boy, yeah, you've popped the pig big. That's— it's so funny because it will give you— and this is not a bit, heaven forbid I do a bit bit, but it'll be like, "Congratulation, congribidibus, you've won, you've been awarded dollar." Like, you want a dollar, like a singular Judeo-Christian dollar, and they sound it out.

It takes forever, and you're like, "Fuck, dude, if I would have just called in a way, even like just fucking taken a call on a phone and asked them for $2, I would have made more money." Yeah, doing something else.

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

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

But it's so funny.

It'll like, but that's how it's gonna get, don't you see where we're going? I know.

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

You're gonna have to go to the Wynn or Encore, or you're gonna have to go to Dragon's Beard or whatever the casinos will be named then, you know, or Faggot's Realm or whatever they're called, right? You're gonna have to go to some of these places. Sorry, you have to go to the Circus of Life or Trump's Nuts or whatever the— whatever the casinos are going to be called. You're gonna have to go there in the Biden's Oculus, right? You're gonna have to go there and they'll like, you know, get 4 spins and you'll see your father, you know? And that's really what it's going to be like.

Yes. And you have to keep playing. You will use your social credit score to go have a round of spins at John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, and you will be lucky to walk out with a talisman.

Yeah.

Or an amulet of any repute. Yeah, dude, it's brutal. And it's so— I always just think it's so funny how there'll be be like, "Gar, gar, gar, gar, gar. You've awarded the pig some hooves." And then they'll just like print you out $1. Yes.

Yeah, dude.

What do we— I mean, where do we go from here?

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

Yeah.

Um, like going to recovery meetings? Yeah, there's a lot of 12-step meetings out there, you know.

Sure. I went this morning in Nashville. I like to, um, at the— at a very—

you go to that 7:30 meeting over there?

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

Oh, nice.

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

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of cultivates a part of you that you can't even access. Like, I think for me, like, I share in meetings. I try to share, um, most of the meetings that I go to, um, and I always wonder kind of why. It's like, uh, and then I was like, oh, well, when I was a kid, I didn't— there wasn't like a place that was safe where I could speak up, right? Like, at our house, you couldn't speak up. Nobody cared how you felt. There wasn't even— I didn't even know I had any feelings except that I wasn't feeling good. Sure. And it was like nobody— and that was our whole like system at home.

Yeah.

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

Yeah, that is really beautiful. I can definitely identify with some of those sentiments from feeling like a bit voiceless when I was younger. Yeah, it is. It's so nice to— anytime I'll try to like prepare something smart to say, it'll be like, you're a bumblebee, you're a troglodyte. Like, I'm a mute, I'm a mute, deaf, speechless. But I'm like, it's some Summer's hard. And they're like, what the—

who—

what are you? Not even who are you, what are you and why. The big three.

Um, dude, when somebody will share something in there that you've been wanting to say your whole life, or here, yeah, and you'll finally hear it, or, or— and you're like, oh, I feel like a part of me, like, will almost like the locks will like turn.

Yeah.

And a new door will open.

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

And the little things you hear in there, man. Yeah, the little things like, uh, contrary action. Like, a lot of times I won't want it if I don't want to do something, unless it's for like a reason where there's like safety concern or something like that. Then I need to consider trying to go do it. Like, I don't really need to do this yoga. I don't really need to go and walk over to my neighbor's and drop this off. Just little— it's 'cause there's a darker part of me that wants me to be by myself, that wants me to stay isolated and sit and think and ponder about everything. And just learning those things. And eventually I have to learn things a lot, right?

Yeah.

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

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

Yes.

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

Dude, some of my best moments, or my moments, or my favorites, are if I wake up and my thought, my first thought about somebody else, it's almost like, God, thank you. Or if I'm just driving, I have to remember something somebody had said yesterday, like, oh, I'm gonna call them and check on them about that.

Yeah.

Or something somebody cared about, and I was like, oh, let me see how that played out for them. The more of those I get, like, the better it feels.

Um, yeah, because we're meant, we're meant to have community. In my mind, just the same thing. It'll— it's so much easier. There's a million other things I could be doing for an an hour a day than doing that. But when I'm alone, if I make an excuse like that, I'll make another excuse, you know?

Yes.

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

and it's like, I just remember people care about me. I'll walk into a meeting and I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, dude, I remember. And it's not that I forgot them or anything, but it's just like, I have to have this thing replenished finished. Yeah, that's like, yes, your heart works, you work, you're okay, things are okay. There might be problems, but they're not that big, and everything's gonna be okay. It's almost like you just like— I don't know, it's like, it definitely is like church. Some people are like, do you go to church? And it's like, I don't go to church every week, but in a way, I go to church 4 or 5 times a week. Yeah, you know, and you feel it, and you feel it. Yeah, like I walk out of there, I'm like, okay, if I'm— if there's Like, I mean, there's some days when it's rough if somebody's sitting on their phone next to me the whole meeting, dude.

There's a kid running around, God forbid. Oh, a little Christmas kid. You can tell it's like a New Year's Eve baby.

Yeah, and he's like, my birthday's coming up or whatever, and I'm like, no, it's not.

Yeah, no, it's not. We're in July. I can tell you're a New Year's Eve baby. Yeah, get the hell out of here with your holiday spirits.

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

Well, something that I go back to is that it's just so nice to be around people who, there's a saying, the saying of terminal uniqueness that makes people continue to struggle, that we think that we're so different in our suffering that we're put on this earth just to suffer. And who am I to say if that's not the case. But everything you've been through has meaning. And of course it has meaning to you, but it doesn't really have that much helpful meaning to you. The things that you've gone through that are really bad, ruminating on that does not help. But when you put it out of you and you see that it helps someone, even just for a day, like being around people who also hurt that way, it's just an incredible feeling. It's not a chore. It's not something you have to go do. It's something I look forward to do. Doing. Yeah, because it's so nice to look around and go, oh my God, I'm not this little freak. Yeah, I'm not this little guy that God forgot, you know. I'm someone that has purpose, even if it's just for today. I can have a purpose of hanging out with these people.

And I know that when I'm in there, I feel better, just for— even if it's just for the hour. Even if I leave and I get back and I feel like shit again, and I'm going a little crazy, and I'm riffing a little too hard about the wrong things in my little brain, Um, it's a safe place, like, and I hate to use that term, but it's, you know, places like that are just— it's somewhere completely free of judgment. It's so beautiful. Yeah, it's so beautiful, and there's nothing else like it.

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

Still, yeah, I'm not going animal style. You can't make me.

Yeah, yeah. But you were like, hey, you want to drive 20 minutes across town to go to like this 11:30 AM like meeting? It's going to be mostly older folks in this church. And I'm like, dude, yeah, yeah, that shit sounds popping.

I dig wisdom. Yes, dude, I love to talk to some old farmer. Ooh wee, I get off on talking to an old farmer.

Our plant's got AIDS. You're like, I don't know if that's what happened.

He goes, when my arm's crying, I got to 'Feed it.' When that baby's crying, I gotta feed it.

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

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

Yeah, why is it hard?

I don't know.

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

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

because that's it, that's some of the wiring is right there. Why won't I let myself have peace? I have friends that are— that like— and I've struggled, I've had some tough years over, you know, over the years for sure. And, uh, but I've had some friends that, uh, won't, won't, won't get close to it, you know? Yeah, try to get close to the fire. They want to just keep, keep trying to do it.

What's familiar is familiar.

And there's a thing of like, I'll figure this out, you know what I'm saying? Like, yes, it—

like, I've gotten myself this far, right?

And the world feels that you— I don't know, when I was younger, I put a chip on my shoulder like the world was an enemy. Yeah. And I'm gonna figure this out, and watch me. And then the worst part is if you have some successes in your life or things that go kind of your way, it's hard to realize that like something, you You know? Yeah. Because then you feel like, oh well, I'm doing— I'll figure this out too.

Yeah, because I did this for myself. I uprooted myself. I made this happen. But then also, I've made a lot of the bad things in my life happen.

That's true, dude.

You know, drinking Tuss, walking down the road, having a little slip and slide.

Oh yeah.

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

Oh dude, you're the Jack Ruby. Yeah. Of that realm.

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

Yeah, for sure.

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

Yeah. It's just willpower. It's vibrant willpower. I'm amazed at the willpower sometimes of people that struggle. I have friends whose parents are out on the streets or who've been struggling for 20, 30 years. And I'm sure some of them, like, some of them even asked me, why do you think they say it? What's going on? You know, it's like, I don't know, but you just try to talk with somebody about that stuff, and it's just the willpower of, of some of, of alcohol, or of people that are in recovery, or of alcoholism, of alcoholics. It's, man, it's strong. It's like, I'll figure this out, everything, I'll turn this around. Or then sometimes I bet you just get— you build— you just get trapped in shame, and then you just want to stay away from your life because you feel like, I don't want to go around these people because I'll only make things worse for them. That's got to be kind of a crazy trap.

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

Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

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

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

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

I do like to. Will you do that?

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

You're the Oral Hershiser of throwing buzzwords out.

Oh yeah, Casey Orange— Casey Orenthal James Ensign Roca.

Uh, Oral Hershiser.

Oh yes, yes, yes.

Sorry, he was— I think he was one of the best pitchers before you were born, dude. When I was a kid, like, the best pitcher was kind of an old white dude.

It was like, okay, Randy Johnson.

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

And Candy Johnson.

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

That is an interesting question, and, uh, uh, happy to be here. But it— that's, that's difficult. I think for me, as part of, uh, a better life that I've tried to live, um, yeah, I love reading about different kinds of, uh, positive philosophy from antiquity. So, you know, Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, um, up through different— I've had different times in my life where I was a more or less a believer of existential nihilism, that life had no purpose, that we were put into this world simply from a dying God, sort of a Gnostic worldview of we don't have any purpose because we will ultimately die, right? So in doing so, the end justifies the means in the sense of whatever we end up doing, it does not serve any sort of greater good. But I believe the opposite of that today. I think as human beings, and these thoughts are sort of a mishmash of various other things, mostly the tenets of Hermeticism and some sort of Kabbalah— not Kabbalic, not like a cult— but the universe is always in motion and we're a part of the universe, right? So I know that my life serves a greater good today, and I also know that I can be a driving force in my life while also knowing that I can only drive so far.

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

Um, but dang, that's crazy. I never heard that before.

Yeah, you know, people— the meaning of life is just, it's the small things. It's to mean something in a moment by moment basis and to do things without the purpose of distraction. So it's so much easier. We've both struggled with drugs and alcohol to turn that knob off, but I'm going to have to wake up again tomorrow. And that's the thing about developing a drug habit is I would always be so furious when I would wake up and, oh my God, I have to do this again. I can't believe I have to do this again. I'm of the belief that we were all created so the universe can understand itself, you know. So I'm simply a cog in such a greater machine of— I only exist because at the end of my timeline I served some greater purpose, you know, for the creator of the universe, whatever you want to call that.

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

Thanks.

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

Thank you for saying that.

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

That gives me self-worth.

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

It's been so nice to, to bring it back to comedy in any capacity, to do things just for fun. Fun to go do an open mic at like a hot dog stand. Yeah, it's like I used to love stuff like that. I used to live for shit like that. And then when you get caught up in all the numbers and how are the tickets and whatever, when you get caught up in all that, it— some of it gets lost.

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

Hard to say.

I think well said. In the end, when we get there, do you— and we realize, oh, this was just a big masked singer, right?

Sure.

And they take it off, they take the mask ask off, who do you hope it is?

Bill Paxton.

Yeah, who played for the Bulls.

Um, is that Bill Paxton? That's John Paxton.

John Paxton.

So, uh, Bill Paxton, American actor who was in Aliens and, um, Frailty. Um, just famed character actor Bill Paxton who did have leading man potential and was sometimes given the option to exercise that. Um, died in a medical— died in a medical malpractice incident and And he, um, he once told me—

really?

Yeah, he got malpractice to heaven.

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

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

Oh, it's probably one of those new— because they're— I know that insurance is offering if you both get surgery on the same day with someone you don't know, it's like, I— it's like, um, cancels out then. Yeah, well, it's cheaper.

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

So yeah, it's a new— and they're doing that new drive-by surgery where somebody just reaches out of like a—

yeah, ow.

But yeah, there's a lot of great offers coming from the gods above, you know.

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

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

Cedars-Sinai, full circle riff, put a bow on it.

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

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

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

Oh, that's a good question. Um, without giving away my entire process, which I am not even capable of replicating, which really gets me in a bind when I can't even do my own act and I'm the one who does it.

Yikes.

I like to do— I like to have some tent poles. So I'll go out there, I'll cause a bit of a fuss. I'll cause a fuss. And I like to— I'll say this, I like to go up there and sing because it gets me out of my head. So I learned a long time ago the most embarrassing thing you can ever do is try to sing genuinely, like in a circumstance that does not call for it. So I'll go up there, I'll do a little grunge number, do a little Alabama Shakes, Britney Howard, and I can feel super embarrassed. And then I go, well, surely nothing for the rest of this hour will feel like how that just felt. So that allows me to just sort of peel the mask off and then do a big Scooby-Doo reveal of me to myself in the mirror. And then I do a quick wink and and I will have some tentpoles. So I'll try to do 3 jokes that I know I'm gonna tell. So before I go up and I do my hour, I'll look at— I'll know 3 jokes that I'm gonna say.

Okay.

And then I'll do joke, joke, yeah, joke. And then from there, hopefully I've gotten about 10 to 20 laughs at this point. And if you extrapolate, let's say the room's 500, which is bigger than rooms that I do. Let's say in a perfect world I'm headlining 500 theaters. If I get 10 laughs out of 500, I go, ooh, I only got 490 to go.

So that—

so that— I, I'll do a couple jokes up top and that'll give me the confidence I need to string it all together. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we're— but I have like a thousand half-sentence jokes, so got it. If I ever lose my train of thought, I'll just like hit them with— I'll just do a quick stinky. So that's like an example of a joke.

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

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

Cadbury and Diesel. Uh, it's just, yeah, there's something just so charming about, about your presentation of yourself.

Thanks for saying that.

It's the truth.

Thanks.

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

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

Oh, thanks.

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

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

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

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

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

All right.

Yeah.

All right, I'm coming then. Yes. Um, what time are your shows? You go at?

7 o'clock.

It is?

Yeah.

Okay, I'm supposed to go to a 6:30 meeting, but maybe I can find a 6, or maybe I'm gonna go to one after. Um, yeah. Uh, Casey Rockett, you got some tour dates coming up?

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

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

Doing some more Funny Bones this year. Um, one thing I want to plug, I have an hour of my stand- up on my Patreon. Okay, it's $6 and all the money goes to harm reduction programs in Chicago. So community outreach, clean needles, harm reduction, all kinds of good stuff that helps people get— help people get the help that they need. So yeah, my Patreon's on there, and if you feel like doing that, just know that all that money goes to charity.

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

Um, I have not done the Orange Peel yet, but I've been to Asheville.

It's so cool, dude. Um, Baltimore, Maryland. Got offered a threesome there by an older mixed couple, one of them wearing— who I think was wearing an Ed Reed jersey. Uh, we got Chicago back at Zanies. Indianapolis, Indianapolis. Louisville, a lot of places. Um, you can check, uh, check him out online on his website, caseyrocket.com.

caseyrocketcomedy.com.

caseyrocketcomedy.com. Yeah, thank you guys. And, uh, and before you go, I would just want to get this note in for, uh, viewers to know the Jasper Mall in Jasper, Alabama has not officially closed. It is still operating, though in a very reduced and dead mall state.

Dead mall state, that's what's gonna happen when the nuclear Family Collapses.

Not to be confused with Deadmau5, actually, who I think is still doing well. Can you bring up Deadmau5?

Yeah, I think that's one of Marshmello's, uh, um, aliases. So it's like dead mouse. Yeah, he's in the— he's— what do they call it? The Marshmello Extended Universe.

So yes.

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

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

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

Yeah, for sure.

Um, there's more to life than riffs, but there's not more to riffs than life. That's it.

That's it. See you at the mall.

I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of my life out. I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take a little—