#44 – William Harvey Talks Comedy Scene Drama, Ghost Pepper Stand-Up, and Growing Up Around Addiction

This week on Good Times, Noodle Salad, Matt and Paige sit down with comedian William Harvey for a raw, hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt conversation about life in and around the stand-up comedy scene.

The episode kicks off with some wild stories about recent local comedy drama, including the absurd trend of fake AI screenshots stirring up nonsense in the scene. From there, William tells us about his chaotic and legendary Hot Set Mic—a show where comedians have to eat ghost peppers before they perform. As you might expect, the results are equal parts pain, panic, and incredible comedy.

But the conversation also gets real. William opens up about growing up surrounded by addiction, the impact it had on his life, and what it’s been like navigating adulthood and comedy after losing his mother. It’s an honest look at how comedians often turn difficult experiences into something meaningful—and funny—on stage.

Of course, we also dive deep into the craft of stand-up comedy: bombing, building sets, weird shows, and the grind of trying to make people laugh night after night.

It’s an episode that swings from ridiculous to real in the best possible way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:37

When we uh when I first when I came and got you, I grabbed you in the building, you were like, Oh yeah, apparently you fucking Again, apparently you're at every open mic there when I'm not there.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

So I was telling people, yeah, like I'm I'm doing this podcast with the the Good Times Doodle Sal, and they're like, oh yeah, that one guy, and I'm like, how do you know him? And like, we just saw him, you missed him.

SPEAKER_08 0:58

Who were you talking to about it?

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Oh, just comedians. Uh one one of them is my buddies, name's Norman Dwayne. He just knows he knows of you guys, I suppose. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Garrett Evans, I'm friends with him too.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Oh, Garrett's cool on, yeah. Yeah, he's like my fucking comedy dad. I keep like texting, I keep like texting him, like, hey, how do you fucking blah blah blah?

SPEAKER_04 1:18

He's he's really funny, he's a super great guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's I like he's like fully autistic about his fucking note taking and I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Yeah, so I saw that on a podcast once how somebody was talking about so so some some comedians really put them to shame. Like he saw one guy come out with like colored tabs and everything, and then I listened to Garrett break down the way he does his bits, and I'm like, I am not a professional dog.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah, dude. Yeah, I I was like, when he he pulled out a a a nice binder and he had note cards in there, and he's like, I listen to each set and I color code it and I highlight what went well and what went bad, and he's like, I'm trying to get a laugh every 12 seconds. I'm like, I fucking love this. Like, I love everything about this.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Oh dude, he's got it so scientifically, and and like you you like you can say something like that, and you're like, oh, whatever, dude. You know, you're just looking at it too analytically, but you actually watch him go up, and you're like, no, he's fucking yeah, he's got it down to a science. Dude is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, yeah, he's fucking solid. Do you want anything to drink? Do you guys have any water by any chance? Yeah, we got water. Can you grab him one, please? Yes. Sorry. She's like, I I have zero effort putting headphones on or off. And she's like, gotta be particular about it. And I'm like, could you do that?

SPEAKER_09 2:32

It's fine, it's not a big deal. If they're not cold, we have beef.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

Yeah, you're good. It's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Anyone that drinks water doesn't want cold water. I'm I'm saying it right now.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

I actually so I disagree. I love cold water.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

So everybody's not a water drinker then.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

No, I am. See, I was drinking. I drink water all the time. It's all I drink is water. Because I'm lactose intolerant. So I don't even drink milk anymore. I used to drink milk and water, but I just drink water together?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

No. You fucking mix.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

Hey. What happens if Pepsi stays in Pepsi? Okay. No, um I love cold water. I like everyone. They always like, no, it's not good for you. It shocks your system. Like, I like that. Oh, I don't like that part.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

I don't know about I mean that's not my opinion, but like Whoa! That was a good one. Yeah. I feel like like at work, so I'm a pipe fetter. At work, if the only water that's available is cold water, I'll go find someone that just has a case of water sitting out. Like, I'll like walk around and find a case of warm water.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Oh dude, I I seek out the cold water. I I will I will frodo baggins that, man. I'll go on go on an adventure.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Maybe I'm in the minority here. Okay, I'm like, I'm like backing off of my opinion immediately.

SPEAKER_08 3:42

I drink it quicker if it's warm. So I drink more if it's warm.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Dude, honestly, so somebody told me water's temperature is its flavor, and that's never gotten out of the bank house. I can't stand the flavor of warm water. Really?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Do you want a beer? We got cold beer. No, it's good. It doesn't bother me. We uh dude, I there was a I don't know who it was. I was listening to somebody on a podcast and they did this like extreme elimination diet because they were having all kinds of autoimmune issues, and he was eating like only beef in water, and that was it. Like just trying to like see what his body could handle. And uh that was that sounds awful. Yeah, it was well that's what that's what he was talking about, is how awful it was because he like the only thing he could attain. Is this Joe Rogan? Or I it was probably on Rogan's podcast, but it wasn't it wasn't Rogan himself. But uh he was like uh but that was one of the things he said. He's like, I can handle salt and meat and like beef and water, but water you can have cold and warm and hot water, like those are very important distinctions when you can't like the only flavor you get is beef, salt, and water. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, he's like it's a very important distinction to be able to have warm water or hot water or you know, cold water. Like that makes a huge difference when you have no flavor in your life.

SPEAKER_08 5:05

I would just suffer through whatever I was going through.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

I don't I don't I wish I remembered who it was so I could like say what it was eat beef and drink water. Yeah. I think there was like joint issues or like he was I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 5:18

Yeah, yeah, I'd just suffer through it.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Yeah, I'm a warm water guy. I'm a like room temperature water.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

You need to start saying that out on stage. Just that that'll be your open roots. So I'm a room temperature water guy. Not even that. No, just go, I'm a warm water guy. And just let it come out real slow.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Just immediately have half the crowd turn on me like this guy's a fucking idiot. Everyone on earth likes cold water. This guy's full of shit. Oh my god. Dude, I I've been I've been doing this bit that I think I'm gonna get rid of, which makes me sad because I really like the jokes in it, but it like turns the half the audience off immediately because I I talk about my ex and how she's a like stupid as fuck, and and then and then go on to talk about that she was adopted from India, so there's like five jokes about that, and it just like immediately turns the whole crowd off. And I'm gonna stop doing it, I think.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Yeah, dude. No, I do I I I I expect I think, yeah, I think a lot of jokes like that that aren't specifically really about you unless they're super really like just genuinely good, they're they're really hard to pass off. Even if they are funny, it's it's really hard to pass to a crowd because they don't know you. Right. And they don't like want to laugh at you already, so you gotta like really edge them in with that.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah, that's that see that's the hard thing I'm realizing is uh I've only been doing it like a month. Okay, it's so like I'm like a but like a lifelong fan, and like have like flirted with wanting to do it forever, but uh but that's like a hard thing, is like I on a job site where I'm work working with my buddies, like I can make them laugh with something that's like insane, but but there's the understanding that I'm not a scumbag because we know each other, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:59

Right, yeah. That's yeah, dude, that's such a hard connect to make with an audience, though. When yeah, that was my hardest thing first starting stand-up too, is like all these jokes are funny with my friends. Why don't you guys find them funny? Yeah, they don't know you, dude. They don't like you, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

They want to not laugh, yeah. Like a lot of the times. Yeah. Yeah. So are you so you're you're you live in you're out in Ann Arbor? Yeah. Did you go to school out there? Are you just from there?

SPEAKER_04 7:25

No, no, I was born in Ann Arbor. Um I went to U of M for a semester, but I ended up dropping out.

SPEAKER_08 7:30

I don't think anybody else has ever been born there and stayed there.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

I didn't stay there. No, I was born there and then I moved when I was young, and then because my mom made poor life choices, we ended up moving back when I was seven.

SPEAKER_08 7:43

Okay. I only ever hear people are like, oh, I go to college there. That's how yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

No, it no, yeah, yeah, you're right. Uh the anybody who's lived in Ann Arbor and stayed in Ann Arbor doesn't talk about it because they don't want people to know.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Uh so do you uh so you're doing mics out there mostly?

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Or are you going to uh unfortunately there's not too many mics in Ann Arbor to do. Really? Yeah, there's only really the Blind Pig and uh Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase right now. Uh and those are the only two like real open mics. I mean, Blind Pig's not even an open mic, it's more or less a showcase, but those are the only real chances to go up. And uh so everything else is out in Detroit, Toledo and uh Lansing.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

And that's really mostly where I'm at is Toledo, Lansing in Detroit. Those are the best places to be.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Do you uh sign up for crumblies or oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

I do at least two to three rooms of his a month. Oh, really? Those are real fun. Yeah, he's got a real great scene out there.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Oh, good, because I I'm I'm on one coming up in the which one'd you get March 14th.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Oh, yeah, Saturday. March 15th. Sunday to Sunday, so that's Home Slice. Home Slice is a really fun one, dude. Home slice is uh it's a pizza restaurant and it's a little earlier in the day. Uh-huh. So they really capitalize on the fact that everybody's kind of up there just chilling already, so you already get a crowd.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

It's really fun. He he um he's just been doing it so long, a certain way out there, that that scene is just so like custom built for Obamite comedians. That it's it's actually a really good training ground. Oh, perfect. You get real reactions to the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah, all right, good. I was a little nervous about this because I was like, man, it's like a it's a bit of a fucking hike for us.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

It is, but it's worth it. His rooms are worth it. Right. That's that's it's one of the times like you'll go out there and you won't be disappointed that you drove an hour to be here.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Okay, cool. Because we I've definitely had uh one or two where I was like, what the fuck? Oh, this was a huge waste of time.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Keep doing it and you'll have one or two a week. Yeah, yeah. It's quite often where I drive out to even like a book show or a paid show, and there's no audience whatsoever, and it's just like, wow. Oh man. Another open mic, great, I love this.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, I didn't I didn't realize how spoiled we were, like being like fucking like we live like a half mile away from one night stands.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Yeah, oh dude, one night stands, I've only done the open mic once there, and it was so good. Exhilarating.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Well, everyone, so like it's the perfect setup for comics. It is, right? It's a low ceiling, it's dark, only the comic is lit up, and everyone is there to see a comedian.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Oh yeah, and they they fill that room out so well, so easily, too.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah, it's yeah, it's fucking so good. Like I yeah, I didn't realize how good we had it until I went and did like a fucking restaurant where like no one gives a fuck that comedians are there like, oh dude, this sucks.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Shout out to Woodbridge Pub, Woodbridge Pub. It's an open mic on the last Tuesday of every month in Detroit. That one's I love that one, but like there's a lot of the times where you'll go there and there'll be a crowd for the first three comics, and then because they were eating dinner, they just stopped to eat dinner and they're like, Alright, we're gonna go now. We don't want to wait another hour. And so it's back to just four comedians.

SPEAKER_08 10:49

That's how it was last Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Last Thursday. Where were we at last Thursday? Oh, at the slider bar?

SPEAKER_04 10:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, sidecar, yeah. Yeah, sidecar.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

All comedians sidecar cleared out after like the first comedian. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

That's kind of the the thing there. It was all comics, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

But like the comics were not even fucking paying attention. They were all like, they're all like circling in and out because there's a door right there, so we're all like going out and smoking weed and like coming back in.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

It's like a big high school hangout, you know what I mean? It's like, come on. All a bunch of high school teenagers are like, sweet, we can smoke weed and drink.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Fuck yeah, dude. I ate a plate of shit there. I I hit a dick so bad there. I was like, this is awful. And then it's Dan Dan came up to fucking like bring up the he's like, Oh, he's like, Don't worry about it, dude. It's just comedians. I was like, sick, the host is telling me, like, don't worry about it. Coo coo cooch, you know? Like, it was so bad. He's like, hey, see, it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Well, but like that's the thing though, in those comedian rooms, is like it's really hard to get a comedian to laugh, especially 10 comedians, because one, they're not they're not judging you, but they're thinking about their bits, they're thinking about their material, they're thinking about like what can I make funny? What am I not doing right? What am I doing right? And it's like you got so many things bouncing around in your head, and then you another one of your fellow comedians is up there, and like you may already know his bits, so you don't pay attention. You're like half in with him, half out. And so that's yeah, I I've learned to take those hits on the chin. You know what I mean, so to speak. Because you go to you go to a room full of comics, I'm like, all right, let's do all the jokes that I haven't written yet that I wanted to write, right? Do all those new stuff.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

See, that's what I think I'm gonna I'll start doing is if I'm in a room where it's just comics or like there's no one there. It's like, all right, let me do some new shit just so I can get a rep of being able to say it. Yeah. Because I I right now, like I have like my phone is my crutch, and I'm trying to get over that. But like, because I like I write these bits out like long form, and then I'm like, okay, do I want to remember them verbatim, or do I want to just remember the bullet points and then I can like riff through it? Right. You know, I'm trying to figure out what works for me.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

It's so what I do, if it it might help you, just saying, well, what I do is I I do so sometimes I'll write the joke out long form. Sometimes I'll just I'll write it out in my head, and then I'll speak it out to like my girlfriend or my friends or something, and I'll see how they react to it. And if it's a hitter, it goes in my notes app on my phone. Yeah, and then I wait a little bit, and then I I go into my notes on my here and I'll write it out long form on there, and I'll just I'll I'll keep testing it out. Like, what's funny about it? What's the best way to tag it, you know, like maybe swap this word out with that one, and then eventually when I like it and I'm confident with it, I just break it down to the first like six words and write that as a bullet point in my notebook, and I just write that out as a set before the show, and that's that repetition of writing the bit like four to five times before it actually goes in a set list has helped me remember it so well. Yeah because it gets to a point where like I'll I'll bring my notebook with me on stage when I do open mics, but I don't look at it anymore because I already know what I wrote in there, and so it's it's like it's there in case I need it, but now it's like I remember.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

How many reps do you think like doing the actual bits before you're able to not look at your bullet points? At least three to four times. Yeah, at least three to four times, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

Like sometimes I'll even just we're not even on stage, I'll go to the gas station and I'll find a way to bring it up naturally in conversation to the gas station attending. Right? And see, is it is it gonna work here? Is it gonna work with this weird white guy who is selling me cigarettes? And sometimes you'll make like three or four people laugh. You'll make the people behind you laugh and lie and you're like, okay, this is this is we're working with some. Yeah, I have to.

SPEAKER_08 14:29

You either make them laugh or piss them off. Yeah, take it too long. Exactly, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yeah, it's it's a real telling event. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

We uh I had I had a I had a moment where I had like a writing non-sequiturs, like just like not not intentionally, just like, oh, I have one liner, okay. I've got to figure out where I can put this thing. Right. And uh, but I was like, I like tried one on my buddy at work, and I was just like, Yeah, he said something about regret, and I was like, Yeah, like the time I motorboated my old lady and she had Vic's vapor rub on. Just like just like, okay, can I throw that in somewhere and make it because it's a stupid idea? Yeah, but yeah, but I had made I had made like a dude that wasn't in the conversation, like off the he's like, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, dude, but that's fucked up. And uh I was like, okay, let me all right. So there's something there like that that has potential, yeah, and so I gotta figure out where I can put that.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

But when you look at comedy at the basics like stand-up, it's a conversation with the audience. That's really what it is. And and that like if you can't take that conversation anywhere, you really you know, like, is it really good? That's that's like that's what I tell myself all the time about my bits. Because like if my bits won't work in every room, are they really my best jokes? And so that's like that's like a thing. So like I'm always trying my material like in every way that I can. And sometimes it's not even the same way that I set it up in in stand-up format when I'm on stage. Sometimes if I'm trying it with people at the store, like I have this one joke and and I did it, it's a real story. I have a joke about um going to Subway and asking a guy to make my sub Jared's way. And it's a joke that I tell on stage, but it is something that I actually did, and the guy could not breathe making my sub he was wheezing because I was like, I was like, can I have my sub Jared's way? Uh undercooked and premature. My God. Uh I prefer meat from an island, but he couldn't breathe, man. And it's a joke that I tell on stage, but it is something that I really did in life, and that's like that's how I get my material. Yeah, that's like I just like alright, how can I make somebody laugh right now? Yeah, you know, well what what what what's the normal situation? What can we twist? What can we make silly out of it? Yeah. And I fail a lot. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Do you uh so okay? So if you're when you go to do mics, are you well? I don't know your style. I haven't seen you do stand-up. I haven't seen you. So uh what is your what would what is your style? Are you storyteller?

SPEAKER_04 16:52

I'm I'm still kind of like I'm only a year into it. I'm not I don't think I necessarily have a married style yet, but or married to a style yet. Um but mostly it's it's kind of self-deprecating in a way, because like I talk about like my mom was a heroin addict and she passed away when I was 18, so I have a lot of bits about that. And then my dad. Thank you. I appreciate that. See, mom?

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Uh anyways, um we both have a lot of connection, yeah. So we can get into that if you want to.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

No, of course, I'd love to. But um, and then also my dad never around, so there's jokes there. I I have high functioning iceberg as I talk about that as well. And then, you know, there's normal stuff, you know, like silly stuff that I find in life, and I make fun of it. I try to always have kind of a not necessarily a dark twist to it, but something that's like I don't know, I'm not trying to be a dry I'm not a dry humor person. I'm more of like a edgy dark humor. Let's let's take something that little taboo and make it silly.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Right on. So like cop like almost coping with trauma with comedy and like come along with the ro for the right way.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Right. I write a lot of topical jokes with that kind of style, but I don't tell them on stage because a lot of the issue with being non-established and trying that material is people don't like you and they don't want to hear you be edgy about random stuff. So they want to hear you be random and edgy, or they want to hear you be edgy about yourself. Yeah. So I feel like that's I'm working up to that point.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good that's a good observation. Yeah, for sure. Like there's uh yeah, like uh I I I've noticed with like some of the like more fucked up jokes that I've told that like they don't the audience doesn't know me and they and they don't know that I'm not a complete scumbag. Right. So like and so it could so like what I'm saying, which like in my mind it's so obvious that it's not me. But they don't know that. They don't know that. Like I could like but like this guy's actually a fucking scumbag. And I'm like, well, I'm not though. I'm just like I'm saying a fucked up joke, be like the joke being that I'm not this guy. Right. But I haven't like, yeah, it's a good way to say that. Like I haven't established myself.

SPEAKER_08 19:00

He tries to read me his jokes before he'll like perform them, but he he like I can't tell if he's being sad or funny, so I'm like, I don't I don't know if I'm supposed to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

That's why I do I do that. I read them like I read the I'll read I I do it with uh I don't know who said this, but like someone said uh like dance moves or like a cheat code, and you know what I mean? Like they call like the all the cheats in comedy like dance moves. So like if I read a bit to her, I read it like I'm reading an obituary. Like I'm not gonna punch it up and like try to per I'm not gonna perform it like whoa, because I I don't want to make her laugh by like performing. I want the writing to make her laugh.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

So two Jews walked into a bar. That's literally what it's like.

SPEAKER_08 19:38

And I was like, you gotta I can't tell like you I can't tell if it's funny without you reading it.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

So that tells me the writing sucked. So I had to do I need to do more.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

It's not necessarily the sometimes like like Sue. I could take a lot of my jokes, and if I read them like that monotone, they wouldn't hit at all. It's sometimes it's it's some I'm learning is tonality, and and like the way you you you make your voice come out when you talk and when you say certain words, it can really impact how funny it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

I I've got I've got an example of this that I'll I mean so I have a I have a joke where I'm like uh like every time like maybe I have body dysmorphia, like every time me and my wife walk past an absurdly fat fuck, I ask her if I'm fatter than him, and she goes, fatter, every time. So like when I say when like so I noticed like the one time I said fatter, good laugh, but I was like, uh fatter. Nothing. Yeah, radio silence. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

So like absolutely like you have to give emphasis to it, and you have to you know it's almost like you have to sell the joke in a way that's not too performative and not like begging them to laugh at you. Yeah, and it's such a big that's why they say they always say everyone who's like a like a com a career permanent stand who's been doing it for 20, 30 years, this is a weird business. This is so weird to be a part of because it is always like it's not it's not something like uh I think who I can't remember Mark Norman said it on a podcast. He said, You'll never stand up so weird because you'll never really figure out how to do it. You're just gonna keep getting better at it. Yeah. And it's so like because it's like you'll never wake up one day and be like, that's how you write the perfect joke. You know, you know, you'll just keep trying new jokes and keep trying to make them funnier.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yeah, it's a discipline. That's why I that's why I think I love it. Oh, it is, yeah. Like be like it reminds me of uh like it reminds me of like golf.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

Like you're never gonna be you know, you know, you should go you should get a sign that says recording.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

There's one out there, there's one out there that says short recording.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

I'll make sure to laugh right by their offices as a lot of they're okay people.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Uh um do we one time we there's a car sales office here, and one time she Had a customer and they were like she was like walking the customer out, and they stopped right there and talked loud as fuck for like two minutes. And I was like, and like the the uh brad that I was talking to from uh Aquamonkey was like, just ignore it, it's fine. And I literally was like, I can't, I can't. I just go boom, boom, boom, stop, and then like afterwards, she was like, I'm so sorry, I forgot that you were in there. I was like, You picked the worst, she's like, I was talking to her and I thought you were in there. I was talking to the customer, and she stopped right in front of your window, and I was trying to get her to keep going, but she wouldn't. I was like, it's fine. I'm in a fucking office building. What am I gonna do? I have no idea what I was talking about, though. Fucking completely erased my brain just now.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

Oh, that yeah. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_08 22:43

Uh we were talking about how you're telling jokes.

SPEAKER_04 22:47

Yeah, talking about the tonality and the wording. Yeah. Like sometimes, like when I was saying um the warm water thing right at the beginning there. It's like that. I feel like if you if you did say that, if you were to try that, you had to do it slow. You'd be like, I like warm water. Yeah. And just like the audience, like, oh no. What the fuck is this guy? Yeah. Like, I am not putting the lotion on my skin, sir.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

That's what that's one thing I'm really uh uh one thing I'm trying to make sure I do is like just slow down and let the let the idea that I'm trying to talk about like air out a little bit. Some guys are like Garrett, Garrett gets up there and he has 1500 jokes in five minutes. I don't know how the fuck he does it. He just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm like, holy fuck, dude.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

I think he takes he takes a joke and he starts it out however he first writes it, and he just keeps working it until he can chop it down to the smallest, quickest version of itself he possibly can. Yeah. And he he really is super talented. I mean, like, I'm only uh barely a year in, and he's multiple years in, and he's blowing a lot of people out of the water that are dedicated. So he's so talented. Well, work ethic, yeah, right. Work ethic, it's it's discipline and work ethic in this, because you can you can be as funny as you want, but if you don't write and you don't go up and and practice your material and work it out and get it through, and and like what he does chop it up and cut the fat and cut it down to its funniest version. Yeah, you won't get it, you won't get up there. Yeah, and you'll spend the next 10 years making 50 bucks at a club featuring. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Dude, I uh one thing I I'm you using as a screen reader, like an AI screen reader, and so like I'll write out my bits and then I'll uh plug in like a like a voice that's very different than mine and have it read it back to me. And I'm like, oh, this writing fucking blows. Like, or like I use the word this word four times in like a one minute bit. Like I gotta like, what am I doing? You know? So that's been pretty valuable because like when you're just reading it, you're like, all right, I'm just like try trying to just like get a rep in while I'm driving or whatever, you know, and like read back the bit and then I'm like, okay, I'm starting to memorize it. And then when I listen to it, it's like a chick's voice doing my material, like reading my screen, and it's like day, day, day. I'm like, oh I fucking wrote day four times in one bit. Like, holy shit, I gotta tighten this up. I gotta trim some fat here. Yeah. I I I love it though. I I the obsession is real.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

How many uh how many times a week are you going on?

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Um well it's eight, you know how it is over here. Like it's fucking like you might get three mics or four mics in a week if they're like 45 fucking miles apart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

You really gotta be you really gotta have a life or a family to do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Which I have fucking I I yeah, which I have half a week. So like the the when the only mics I can do are Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh no, that makes sense. So like I can't do like I can't do Paul's mic at New Way. Yeah. You know, I can't do Oh no, I can't do New Way.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

Is that a bad is that not good? No, it's not that New Way. New way is the epitome of uh bar comedy. Like it's you you can have anything at any time going on. Like you could have a crowd that's paying attention and giving you exactly what you deserve. Or you could have four comics that are staring at their phones or writing, and you've been there for six hours waiting to go up. Because the thing about New Way is every comic in Detroit goes there every Monday. Like you're talking 45 comics a night, which is every Monday. And it's I mean, and love Polly, but he puts up certain people because like certain big headliners, he'll throw them up first, and so like you might be 10th or 15th or 20th on the list, but you're not going up till 1 a.m. You're not going up till 11 30.

SPEAKER_08 26:40

He did say that he's there that like until all night.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

Yeah, Pauly works. Polly is he's the there's a reason why everybody says he's one of the best open mic hosts in the city, because he really dedicates himself to New Way. Yeah, it's it's it is a good open mic. It is a great open mic. It's just when you're driving an hour from wherever you're coming from, and then you have to wait six hours to do five minutes, it's a little like you know what? I kind of want to watch the view tonight. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yeah. Yeah. So there's yeah, so I can only do the mics that are Wednesday through Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

That makes sense. Yeah, you would there's a lot of Wednesday ones now. There's there's uh Keisha's Comedy House, and I just did that. How was that? Because I was gonna go Wednesday and I didn't know if they were doing it or not, and I didn't want to waste the trip out.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Oh, I called. I I called, I called her so are they doing it every Wednesday?

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Is my question? Okay, so she's she's doing it every Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Okay, yeah, she's a she's super nice.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Yeah, I heard she's very welcoming to new comedians. She's super nice.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yeah, she was like, I could uh she called me on accident. Oh, okay. And I so I called, I called her to make sure the mic was still going on, and then she called me back on accident, like called the wrong number or whatever. So I called her. We were playing phone tag and hey, what's going on? She's uh she's like, hey, you know what? I I didn't mean to call you, but make sure are you gonna come Wednesday? Like every Wednesday? Like, I want you to come back. Like you gotta come back. Like she's super nice. Oh, yeah. And the place is sweet.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

It's like bring it's like I've seen pictures and videos from it. It looks really too yeah. It's cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

It's like it's like an old, you know, it's a bar, but they got uh they built a little stage, like a little like four-inch stage.

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Yeah, they got a whole little production thing going there. It's really nice. It's cool.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah, it's fucking sweet. They got a DJ that plays in between them, and and then it's like bring your own booze. Oh, okay. You know, so it's like it's almost like you're going to your buddy's house.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Yeah, that's that's kind of cool. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I gotta, I was gonna go Wednesday, but I was like, I don't know what they're doing. And I have made the mistake one too many times of driving an hour and a half out somewhere, and they're like, Yeah, nothing's going on here tonight. How are you, pal? And you're like, oh, what do you mean? Motherfucker. Yeah. And I'm like, I try to make I try to console myself and order something to eat. I'm like, well, I guess I just drove an hour and a half for dinner. Yeah. Right. Try to try this really good mozzarella stick. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to eat this super over-greasy burger.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

I so I did uh I did what is that fucking place in Lavonia? God, I'm drawing a blank. Roadhouse. Roadhouse, yeah. So I did Roadhouse and then did Keisha's forward.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Yeah, so I went to Roadhouse. That was actually the one that they said I missed you at. Because I went to uh I went to Roadhouse on Wednesday and I didn't perform because I was last on the lineup. Oh fuck. Yeah, there was no way I was gonna be able to.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Yeah, I I was uh I think I was fourth and then I got out of here.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

Yeah, that's one of those like because I did uh I did I had a mic before that one in uh Waterville for that's one of Crombly's rooms. That was a fun one. Oh really? Yeah, yeah. But I was gonna I was gonna come out and do Roadhouse when I got there, and there's like 20 people signed up. I'm like, ah I put my name on the list, I'm like, I'll eat dinner. And if by the time I'm done eating, they're not even halfway done, I'm going. I'm going home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Dude, I uh I put I put it in our in our calendar app that we share that it was at 6 30. Like the mic was at 6 30. I get there, the mic's not until 8. Yeah, yeah. I was like, you gotta be fucking kidding. Oh yeah, yeah. So like I a lot of us. And I was there early, so I was like sitting there at six o'clock going, like, fuck, dude, what am I gonna do? Get hammered, like, you know, and and then I was up fourth, so I think I was on nine o'clock. Right, right, right. But I think I went up at like nine, nine, nine thirty or something, and then and then rushed over to Keisha's and then got up at like 11:40. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

I was like, she's runs late. Good to know. Yeah, good to know.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, yeah, they were and they also are not like she's not giving the light peop at to people at five five minutes.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

Like there was a there was a couple like is there does she like is she having a crowd or is it mostly comics?

SPEAKER_02 30:32

It's all it was all comics. Okay, but it was cool, like, but it was cool though.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Like they're probably all it's probably not a lot of comics you'd see in a lot of the other Open Mic 2.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Three of three of the dudes were there. Uh Clay Okay, Clay, love Clay. Clay was up. Uh Will God damn it.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

What Will Chavis.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Will, yeah, was up, and then he's the only other Will. What uh Smith. What uh Paul Paul Smith? Scott Scott Smith. Scott Smith. The white guy. Yeah, Scott Smith. Yeah, looks like he'll sell you insurance. Yeah. Yeah, Scott Smith went up. Scott Sc Scott went up and ate shit. I was like, I've never seen it. He's so good, but he ate shit that night.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Well, when you when you go up in front of comics, sometimes it's hard because like sometimes you're like, I'll go out with a plan to do my tried and true material. And I'm like, all right, I got new tags for it. We're gonna work it out. Yeah, I think open mic's gonna be great, it's gonna go good, and I get there, and there's two people that I haven't seen before. I'm like, God damn it!

SPEAKER_02 31:28

He was like, he was like, what do I just fucking suck tonight or what? Yeah, it was so funny. That was the funniest part. He was there last night, right? He had this he had this, I don't want to give away his premise, but he had this fucking new bit that I haven't seen him do that was really funny. I was dying laughing, and but uh he was like he did he did like fucking 10 minutes, I would say. Oh yeah. Yeah, he uh he had yeah, he had some new bits that I haven't seen him do yet that were fucking hilarious. I'm like, these are you know, once this gets legs, that's gonna be a fucking killer. Okay, what am I doing? So I fucking suck today or what? It's fucking hilarious. I ate an absolute plate of shit. I went up I went up second to last, I just fucking ate it like so bad. I was like, I was telling these like kind of dark jokes about my ex and like how bad our relationship was, and uh every time I said like what I thought was you know, like what I wrote as the punchline, there was just this woman that was in the crowd just going like that's the one thing I went to uh I was like no Chanel Ferris, simply Chanel, she started an open mic.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

She's coming on tomorrow. Oh wow, so she's she started an open mic. I was at Tuesday at her room at Ford Patio, and it was something I was talking to my girlfriend about. Like every black room that you go to, there's always one black room woman in the back of the room with somebody's bomb just going.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Every punch lag every punch line you should hear go.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

It happened like four times. I had to I had to address it.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

I was like, it's like it's like a mix of pity and disgust. It's like, you poor child, how dare you?

SPEAKER_02 33:05

I was like, I was like, I had this fucking bit talking about like uh I was with my ex from 15 years old to 28. So I'm like, I was with my ex from 15 to 28, which is also my rough estimate of how many dudes she cheated on me with, and silence, and then I'm like, fuck, dude. I'm like, you're making me sad about like you're making me sad about like like remembering how sad it was when it happened, but this is supposed to be funny now, like god, dude.

SPEAKER_08 33:32

Looking back on it laughing now.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Oh yeah, I say fuck, dude. You should I I got the foot uh the recording of that one.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

You should listen to it just because it's see that that's uh one of the weird things. Like, even my good recordings, I can't listen to no like I have such bad no, it puts me in a really bad mental place because I start tearing myself to pieces about like my material and like like because like the other people would tell me that's a great set, those are great jokes, or even my girlfriend would be like, No, you did fantastic. That was awesome. Be like, no, that's horrible. I'm not a real comedian. I suck. I look like a fool on stage. What am I?

SPEAKER_02 34:09

That's the healthy mentality, though, dude. Imagine if you watched your shit and you're like, dude, I'm so good. Yeah, no, that's that that would be crazy.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

No, I I and it makes me feel less bad about it because I you know who Jesse Eisenberg, the actor is? He he was saying in an interview for Batman vs. Superman, they were like, Did you ever you ever see the movie? And he was like, No, I never watch a film that I'm in. Yeah, and he's like, I I can't do it, it's too cringy. And I'm just like, man, me too, but like, God, you're missing out on so many good movies, man. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 34:40

I yeah, I I will I watch them He watches them multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Well, yeah, well, yeah, because I'm like paying attention to certain stuff, and then I'm like, all right, hold on, let me pay attention to like where did this like if I had a laugh and I tried to punch it up, did I kill the laugh? You know what I mean? Like, so like I'm you know, I'm I'm paying attention to you know, I'm trying to really pay attention to it as like a as a professional, I guess. Like I'm not like sucking my own dick, I'm going like, what did I do wrong there? What did I oh I said that backwards. That's why I killed the fucking room right there.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

And you know, I do audio tracks at open mics, I do voice memos, that seems to help me. Because listening to it is nowhere near as bad as watching it. Yeah, I try to record all the shows that I do so I can see what my mannerisms are, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

That's dude, that's one thing that uh I mean, I guess I'm thinking about fucking every part of this right now because I'm brand new. But one thing I want to try to do is try to get bigger with my mannerisms because I feel like I get up there and I'm kind of like you know, and I'm like kind of like Oh, you got your hands in your pockets because you feel safe?

SPEAKER_08 35:45

Almost fuck you, dude.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

That comes with uh that's just nervousness, man. That really is what it is, and like honestly, every I think everyone deals with this when they first start. It takes you a solid 200 mics to really get through that first thick layer of like I I'm up here, like I'm I'm used to doing this. You know what I mean? Because it's like it's like when you go to a new job and you're you're doing something new you've never done before. Like, say you you you just started driving a forklift at work for the first time, like you're gonna be really nervous every time you take a turn for the first month. You know what I mean? And so you've driven that forklift a hundred times, and you're like, Alright, this I know this turn, I know how to twist and turn. That's what a stand-up is. Like when you're on the stage, it's not really you're nervous to be funny, it's you're nervous to talk in front of this many people who don't know who you are. Because it's it is weird. Like it's so easy to sit there and watch me like, ah, I can do that. And then you get up there and the lights on you, and the stay the microphone's in your hand, and you can hear your own voice in your ears, and you're like, wait a minute, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Right. But yeah, dude, the first the first time I got up there, my heart rate literally got to 174. Oh yeah. I was like, dude, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 36:49

I think the third time I did stand-up comedy, I got tunnel vision and I had to get off stage because I almost passed out. Shit. Yeah, like I was because I was bombing. And I had bombed before. Like, well, not saying that I'd been doing good or crushing, but eating shit as well. Yeah, I hadn't eaten complete shit yet. And this is my first time doing that. And I'm like, what is happening? I couldn't breathe. I'd smoked way too much weed before I went on stage, so I was blaming it on that.

SPEAKER_08 37:14

Like, sorry guys, I'm too high. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I wanna I haven't I haven't tried I haven't gone up high yet.

SPEAKER_08 37:18

I don't think you should. You'll you won't be able to think right.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

I want to just try it. Just to see if like softening the edges is good for me.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

I would smoke a little bit before I like I smoke like an hour before I go up just to get like a little little calmer. But my thing is I take a shot at sequela every time before I go up. One shot at sequela. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_08 37:37

Dude, uh oh, he's gonna well he usually does shots of fireball before he goes up.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Yeah, yeah, I'll do like a shit. Yeah, I'll do like a quick shot.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

It loosens it just, I feel like it just really loosens me up. Like one shot, it doesn't intoxicate me, like to a point where I'm a different person, but it it just it's like okay, I feel a little more comfortable just talking and less like I'm less I think about myself less. I think about myself in the third person less. Right. And I'm more just absorbed in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Yeah, I I I completely agree with that. I mean, there's there's days where this is this is gonna sound problematic, but I I don't mean it this way. There's days where I'm so in my head just at home, I'm like, I think I'm gonna get drunk today. Or like, not well, maybe not drunk, but like I'm gonna do sound problematic. I'm gonna I'm gonna have a drink. Well, like, I mean, there's been days where I come home and I'm just a cunt. Like I'm just like I'm just like anxious and like I feel like I got a bunch of pressure on me, and I'm just like fucking mentally just like exhausted from work or whatever, and then I have to be like dad, but I but I don't want to just be like go away, you know. I want to be like fucking not miserable, and like there's obviously drink, right? So like so like I'll do like a shot or fireball and then like make a mixed drink, and I'm like, all right, let me soften out the edges a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

You know, you're like you're like just hit the sun a couple of times and then take a couple of shots.

unknown 38:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

So like okay, take the I'm realizing that sounds like I'm like a fucking alcoholic. Like, I can understand that sounds terrible, but well, I mean, I can understand it.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Like, obviously, there's probably a better solution than alcohol, but yeah, I see what like the angle you're going for, and like I I get it, you know. Like my mom was a drug addict, so like I get it just I watched it from multiple different facets. Like I get the well, trust me, dude. I'm addicted to weed and nicotine. Like, I smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish at night some nights, but I think it's just sometimes like we we live in a day and age now where it's every time you look at your phone or you turn the TV on, it's just chaos, and it's you don't feel comfortable or safe anymore. Like, even in America, we're the one place where we thought we were the safest. It's like we're now more than ever, we're being like the people who are in charge of us who are authoritarians, ones we're supposed to trust are the people we can trust the least, evidently. And and then on top of it, you gotta go to work, you know, you gotta you gotta wake up and go cut pipes and fit pipes while it freaking trumps, you know, going through 12-year-olds left and right. Like it's a crazy world we live in. Yeah, that is I'm just saying, like, it's it's kind of normal to want to take a couple shots when you get home nowadays, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 40:15

I would yeah, well, also I think like for the last fucking how many hundreds of years it was normal to like get a little saucy to like soften up the end of your knife.

SPEAKER_04 40:27

Yeah, like 400 years ago when you had to avoid getting eaten by jaguars and saber-toothed tigers and shit.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Yeah, 400 years ago. You go home, you go home, you're like, huh, I can deserve this.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

I earned this. Dude, hold on. I need to call you out on this. Dude, 400 years old. There's colleges that are 400 years old, man. In America.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

I'm not a historian, I'm a comedian.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Dude, jaguars in the in the fucking tiger tribe.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

People are going to Oxford in 400 years ago, and they're probably thousands of jaguars, too.

SPEAKER_08 41:01

Maybe not here, maybe in other places.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Hey, listen. Mountain lions, lions in Cap Corner. Fuck you, dude. They're still jaguars. Mountain lions in Florida. I would just picture them. Yeah, yeah, they do. You they have mountain lions in Florida and the Everglades. I was picking it a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

When you said you're fucking avoiding Jaguars, I immediately pictured like fucking Apocalypto. Did you ever see that? Did you ever see that movie? The fucking the Native American movie that Mel Gibson did where they're like running through the woods.

SPEAKER_08 41:32

Like I pictured like Tarzan. That was so fucking oh, you really got him on there. Yeah, that was fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

I love dude, that's so fucking funny. Holy shit. I love I'm just I'm just saying, man.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

But no, I mean, honestly, though, like when you can sword fight your neighbor to the death legally.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

It was fine to drink that.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

But it and the craziest thing is we're not far from that.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

Like, we're like three granddads away from that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm pretty sure my great-great-grandfather lost a duel or something.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Definitely, dude. Mutual combat should come back.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

Oh, dude, that's a real thing in Texas. I just watched a TikTok. Yeah, I just watched a TikTok where a guy was trying to enact mutual combat with a cop. It was a crazy thing.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Yeah, it was crazy, dude.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

I'm like, this is what I mean when I get on social media and it's just chaos after chaos. It's one thing after another, and I'll just dying laughing the whole time. I I challenged you to a mutual combat.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

He's like under Texas State law, channel you to mutual combat.

SPEAKER_08 42:47

My God.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

That guy's got a sign on the back of his truck that says, I will not be tagged instead of a license plate.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Don't tread on me.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

He's got the whole flag in his truck. Oh, dude. That's fucking hilarious. Calling out a proud man, boy, I'm a proud man. Oh, fuck. Dude. Oh boy. I had something I wanted to ask you. I'm fucking now. My brain has just been wiped.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

When is uh just a quick question? When does this episode come out?

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Uh probably like I don't know, probably three, four days. Okay, perfect. Just it, you know what it I should. I was talking about this at work today. I should like establish an actual schedule, but I always just like, oh, I can get this done today, and then I hurry up and edit it and then post it right there.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

Yeah, it dude, it all comes in baby steps. I mean, you guys are like, this is really nice. The fact that you guys even have a studio. You know, there's a lot of people that are doing podcasts at the open mic waiting rooms. Peggy Peggy. No dis to them. Like you you're hustle, respect the game, you know, game respect game. Like, you know, but it's yeah, like it takes baby steps, man. It really it takes small like this is amazing. You guys I feel like a real professional for the last 30 minutes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

I was just talking to a buddy of mine uh at at lunch today, and he had we hadn't seen each other in a while. You know, we're both pipe fitters, but we ran into each other at breakfast and he's like, dude, so like you know, you're fucking doing pretty good. You got a studio now? You must be doing pretty good. And I'm like, no. I'm losing hundreds of dollars a month. It cost me a lot to do that.

SPEAKER_04 44:28

He's like, hey, I heard you're digging a hole. How's it coming? It's like terrible.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Broken four bones. He goes, uh, so you're doing like you're doing everything? TikTok, Instagram, all that? I go, Yeah, I'm on everything. He goes, Yeah, my girlfriend's starting an Instagram. I go, yeah. He goes, Yeah, she posted a video of her like kicking the cut the cap off a water bottle. It got 16 million views. I go, if you could go ahead and scoot the fuck away from me right now, that'd be sick. Like I'm trying so hard. No, seriously, you're not really. And your fucking girlfriend just went and knocked a fucking cap off a water bottle or a beer bottle and it got 16 million views. She's got like 10,000 followers on everything. I'm like, I'm like, wait, let me see that video, but also fuck you, dude. Like, like, don't tell me that shit.

SPEAKER_04 45:11

Well, the thing the thing about that is though, like, you guys are building a consistent brand. And once it hits, it'll hit and it'll pay off. You know what I mean? Like, the thing about those trendy videos is like you'll get 16 million views, but how are you gonna get that again? Right, you know what I mean? You're gonna kick you're gonna kick the cap off a liquor bottle now, and then you just gotta keep finding your bottles. You're just gonna keep digging yourself deeper in the hole. Next, next thing you know, it's a coating bottle. Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Right, right. Yeah, hopefully, I mean, I just I want to stay this thinking about this podcast and like wanting it to pop, it's like I like I don't like if it just sustained itself, I would be so happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just like that's like the pipe dream. Like making an income from it, who gives a fuck?

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Yeah, well, that's like that's what that's what I want to do with stand-up, man. Like everybody's like, Wait, wait, you want to be famous, right? And it's like, no, not really. I just want to make a living doing this, and I just want to survive and keep doing this, you know, and keep getting better at it. Because this is so fun to constantly create and give back. It's like because you are giving back to the community, you're taking time out of your day, like, and people don't realize how much time you are taking out of your day to write this material, practice the material, publish the material, to make it the best version possible. So when you go out to these paid shows, like you really are giving to these people, you're giving hundreds of hours of your time of and and you're trying so hard just to get 30 seconds of laughter out of them. And it is a reward for you and for them too, because they get to forget about everything for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. They get to forget about either car payment or their mortgage, you know, or their dying granddad or something like that. Yeah, and so it is it is really like if we could all just continuously create, that's all I care about, too. Is like just that's all I want, and that's why it's amazing to be a part of like you what you guys are doing, like you helping comedians and musicians out. Like you're just giving back to the community because you're giving us more exposure, and we appreciate you guys for that more. Well, I appreciate that, man.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yeah, I'm like, I'm definitely doing it in like a selfish way because I enjoy the fuck out of having these conversations. Yeah, well, this, yeah, keep it. But I love that, man. Yeah, yeah. I I do love it though. I like this is who I am without a fucking mic in my face. Like, if I ran into you and I wasn't doing comedy, but oh, you're doing comedy, okay. Tell me everything about you know like that's the I love learning people's stories, and then like you know, we flirted with the idea of doing a podcast where we could have guests on and stuff, and and it was just it was like, okay, we just have to dive in, we just have to do it, we have to do the full thing. We did it in it started in my six-year-old's bedroom. We like, we like we talked to the boys, and we're like, Will you guys be okay with both being in one room? And they were. So then me and my brother did the podcast, just us having our conversations one-on-one for like four months or something. And then we started talking about having guests and whether we were gonna transition to being a guest-based podcast or not. Right. And it was like, dude, if we do that, we we can't do it at one of our houses. Right.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

And all like inviting strangers like, hey, welcome to my six-year-old's bedroom. Right, exactly. Right, right. Right. And you can't it's like not in any manifestos, are you?

SPEAKER_02 48:19

And then you know, like, right, and if like things don't go well, or like I've had I've had a couple of weird experiences with this podcast already. Just like I'm willing to do that, yeah. Like uh, I mean, like I whatever. I I guess I'm just gonna blow them up, but we uh I won't say who I won't say who it is, but there was a guy that became a fan of the podcast, and because we're in the same world, felt like he was entitled to like get in contact with me because he's also in construction. Yeah, and so like he went around asking all the pipe fitters that were on the job if any of them knew me, and they do because we're all like all of them know me. I'm in this, I'm in the pipe fitters union.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

So he got my number from a guy who wasn't expecting anything to be weird about it, and then the guy's blowing my phone up, being like, dude, I have this business idea. I feel like we were meant to meet. And then he's like, and then he's like, dude, we gotta, and then I didn't I stopped like I responded to the first text. I was like, oh, thanks for listening, you know. And then after that, I was like, all right, I'm not gonna answer any of it. Yeah, and then he was like, Well, since you want to make shit weird, and like and then he like blew up on me. I was like, This is so what the fuck, dude? Like, I don't know you, I don't owe you anything. I don't know you. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 49:31

It's like when the priest molests the kid, he's like, I can't believe you just molested me. You did you're terrible for this.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

He's like, You want to make shit weird by not responding? Like, I'm just gonna lay it out. And then he's like, I'm gonna lay out what we're gonna do. That's what that's what his last text message was. That's I'm gonna I'm gonna lay this out for you. I'm like, this is the weirdest shit. That's insane. So to fucking put a bow on it, we yeah, we had we had to get a studio. Yeah, we had to get a studio. And that's not even a guest, that's a fan.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

What happens when he finds out where the studio is? Oh god, don't put that out in the universe.

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Uh it's not in Waterford.

SPEAKER_08 50:12

Uh it's actually in Saginaw. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

Oh, that's a good yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Saginaw, for sure. If a shooting's gonna happen anywhere, it's gonna be in Saginaw, not in Waterford.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yeah, that was a fucking weird one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Apparently there's a mic at a at a bar in Saginaw, that's what I was asking you about. She went to Saginaw Valley. Oh, yeah. Wondered if you knew the bar. She said that it got that bar got weird. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_08 50:45

It was my favorite bar. The Hamil Hamilton Street Pub. Hamilton Street.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:49

They do a mic there. Yeah, I've heard about it.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

I was thinking about going up there, but I heard it's good.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

I heard it's good. I heard it's a good mic. It's they got a good little scene out there in West Michigan. You got a lot of drama though, evidently. I I don't want to seek on it, but it is if you go on Facebook and you look at it, this they're they're they're fun people.

SPEAKER_08 51:06

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Drama with each other? Yeah, well, there was a whole issue where somebody was posting screenshots of text messages that they somebody sent to another comedian that's a big booker in that area, and it's wow. Toxic? Yeah, like they like deserve to have them blow up. I don't know, because people were claiming that the the screenshot was AI, they were claiming it was fake, and then other people were claiming it wasn't fake, and it was just like like I'm just like watching all this happen on Facebook, and I'm like, wow, I'm so glad I've never done an open mic out there.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

So the person that was sending like okay, so the the guy that's the person that screenshots it is the victim in the world.

SPEAKER_04 51:45

Supposedly, yeah. And then there there were people defending him, but there were also people accusing him of creating that with AI and lying about it. It's it's a whole yeah. That's that's it's yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

It's like it's like I'm such a lady, I love gossip so much.

SPEAKER_04 51:59

Well, it's just watching it, it's like it's like, wow, we really didn't grow up out of high school, did we? We all did peak in high school, yeah, because we're still stuck in that mode.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

So, like a booker's not helping this guy, and then he gets bitter and screenshots shit and sends it out.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

I think it's similar along lines of that. I think there's a little more to I think they're both bookers that are competing for the scene, and so it's kind of like a rivalry in that sense. And yeah, it's dude.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

Anyone you're gonna get that with anyone that works in the same industry or with each other.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

It's crazy because it doesn't happen like that out here. Like, there's not like you you hear about people like they're like, oh man, they're having this show the same night I'm having my show. That it doesn't shock me, and I'm gonna need you to tell me who it is off mic because I have a feel like I would say I'll tell you guys off night because I don't I'm not gonna get it fucking weirdo from up there that you dated. There's there's we'll we'll talk about we'll talk about it off, we'll talk about it after the after the podcast. But no, it's it's it's it is I hope he's I hope his life is not going well. But anyways, no, it's it's like it does it happen like that out there because like I'm a producer, like I produce my own show, and I don't compete with anybody. I'm not in competition with the fucking set. I do the hot set comedy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tickets on sale March 14th. Sorry. This is what this is for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sell your shit, dude. Yeah, I will at the end of that uh at the end of that I'll I'll give my Instagram and everything out. But um, no, it's it's it's um no, I'm not in competition with anybody. In fact, everybody who I've worked with or who I'm in in contact with in the environment, in the business on my side, at least over here on the east side of Michigan and the south side, is like all supportive. Every single one of them want to see me do good, and not just me. They want everybody I'm working with to good. You know, like they the the the uh the want for good comedy in the Detroit metro scene is like so far and above beyond any need to gatekeep spots. And that's what I love the most about it. Yeah, because like everybody will like they'll tell you to keep going up. They won't like nobody won't tell you don't do comedy anymore. Right. They'll they'll encourage you in the most positive way.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

I dude, I can't believe how positive and welcoming everyone I've met has been. It's been it's been like like you hear all these horror stories about especially like the LA and New York guys, how they used to just be pieces of shit to each other and steal each other's shit and fuck each other's girls and like all this toxic. Steal each other's material, yeah. Steal each other's material, and like, and like I I've I just started and like I I got Peggy Beattie and and Kate Dore, Dore, yeah, Doreen's amazing, yeah. And and Garrett Evans, and like all these people are like messaging me, like going like, hey, this is what works for me, this is where you can go, blah blah blah. And then we do mics together and we talk, like Darren Lewis. We you know, me and Darren talk, and that's exactly how it began for me.

SPEAKER_04 54:50

I I jumped head first into the scene, excuse me, and everybody, you know, they didn't necessarily accept me, but they all helped me. You know, they all like they they they lit the torches for the path and were like, here, go that way. You know, I had to walk the path myself, but they they gave me some light. Yeah, and then that's pretty cool, dude. Like the comedians in this scene are really awesome people.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Yeah, dude, it's it's been a pleasant surprise. Like, I'm like, I'm it's so I would have thought I was like, fuck, this is gonna suck because I don't have any friends in this, and I'm just gonna have to fucking deal with being the being alone or the whole time. But no, everyone's like it's been like super welcoming, which is yeah, absolutely a fucking pleasant surprise.

SPEAKER_08 55:27

And even with me, too. Like, I'm not up there doing the comedy, but I'm there and they cut they'll like come up and talk to me, and like yeah, they do the same thing as my girlfriend.

SPEAKER_04 55:33

Like, I think they love my girlfriend more than they love me. It's like I think they like her more. They even tell me she's funnier, and that doesn't hurt my feelings at all. But right, no, it's it's seriously, like you we are surrounded by some really solid people. Yeah, it's awesome. It's it's it's an amazing scene. Yeah, um, but yeah, like like I said, I do I do produce shows. I do uh the hot set comedy, which is uh we have a bunch of comics come up and they do three minutes of regular stand-up and then they eat a ghost pepper and do four minutes of improvised stand-up based off premises that I give them. Yeah, no, it's it's so fun.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

So it's like stand up on the spot with fucking with a hot pepper, with your mouth on fire.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

It's like stand-up hot ones, is is kind of basically where it is, except I'm not interviewing them, but um I am putting them you know on the on the spot and it's it's really fun, dude. I mean, so I host it, and uh the last time I the first time we did it was the last time I did it, but I I ate three habanero peppers and in between sets, and uh in between the the third to last guy, I projectile vomited four times. I was I drank so much milk that my stomach had no more space for milk in it.

SPEAKER_08 56:45

And your lactose intolerant.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

Yeah, but uh we had well we had um we had lactose or like we had like all the forms of milk to everybody. Um but yeah, dude, I was chugging it. Like I had a half gallon just for myself, and I was sitting there chugging it, and then it's like there's just no more space in my tiny little stomach. Yeah, oh everybody. I was trying to clean the toilet up in between people's.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

I'm like, I can't leave it like this, but I gotta go back up there and play the next comic.

SPEAKER_04 57:11

Because like I'm also in my head, like, I don't know how long these comics are gonna last with the peppers, and I gotta hurry up. Oh, it's it's so do you record? Do you record yeah? We did record the first show, and um, so we haven't posted anything of it yet. I'm still working on doing the YouTube and the Instagram page for it. But yeah, like I said, we were running the second show on March 14th. So the tickets are on sale for it right now.

SPEAKER_08 57:33

Where is it at?

SPEAKER_04 57:33

Uh so it's in Celine, Michigan. It's at the Arbor Edom music venue, which is right by Planet Fitness. Free parking for everybody. There's tons of parking spaces. Um, but yeah, tickets are on sale. They're on my Instagram, Will Does Comedy at Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

I need the money. Um that would be fun.

SPEAKER_04 57:52

See, no, it is it is such a fun show. Like I really encourage people to come out and come see it because it's not just I don't know, like I said, I don't care about the money aspect. Like, if I break even on these shows, that's all I really care about. Because I'm you know, I'm paying the comics out of my own pocket, and this is all I'm producing this thing completely myself. The venue's paying for nothing. They're just simply allowing us to host it in their space, which is amazing. Yeah, amazing that I even get the chance to be there. So shout out to the Arborita music venue. Amazing people. Um, but yeah, it it it it's it's uh it's so fun. It is, and it's something different, it's not something that anybody else is really doing right now. So it kind of it kind of just sticks out, you know. It's it's something new to see. And uh the more we do it, the better we can make it. You know what? You know, that's that's the whole idea behind it. So the more people keep showing up, the more I'm gonna keep doing it, and the better I'm gonna make it. And the idea is to theoretically take it to festivals within, you know, a couple years and start doing this at some comedy festivals and comedy clubs, too.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

That's a that's a fun fucking format. It's really funny. Also because like the whole the whole currency that we're working with here is attention, right? And like, but you you're begging for it a lot of the times. Like, fucking come on, man. Like you're at a you're at a comedy show, like walking, and the least you could do is look.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

And but like seeing somebody suffer is like like yeah, it's a fucking way, but like it's it's it's entertaining, like you know, you boil it down to the most basic principles. I mean, people like they they in Rome they gave them peanuts and circus, you they gave them the Coliseum, and people loved the Coliseum, people loved watching people suffer for some unfortunate weird reason. We humans like to watch each other squirm. Right. And but it it's not even just about that. It's like I think it's just it's everybody's doing a cut and dry stand-up show, you know. Everybody's doing five five minute spots, ten minute spots, you know, doing a showcase here, showcase there. It's like nobody really wants to see a showcase anymore. Like, if I really want to consume stand-up and I don't really want to go out, which we are living in a day and age of people not really wanting to go out because of the whole COVID issue, so you really have to like entice people to get out of their house now on the weekends. Like you really, really have to sell it to them. Um they don't just want they can watch it on Netflix, you know, they can watch Shane Gillis on Netflix and they can watch Bill Burr on Netflix. Right, they can watch like the best. The best, yeah, literally the best and comfortable with their own snacks with alcohol, they don't have to pay overprices for, you know, like so. It's you have to give them something that they can't get anywhere else, something that they can't just consume anywhere. That's why I think this idea works so unique so much, because it's and I love it, dude. I I had fun doing it, and I I lasted a total of like let's say a minute and a half during my hosting set after eating the habanero pepper. I'm a lot wider than I thought I was. But no, dude, it was so much fun, and you really like I I never knew this, but you do get a high after eating spicy peppers. Dude, your vision changes, yeah. Yeah, everything changes. We were we were all sitting there, me and the comics after the show, and they're like, Yeah, don't pepper and drive, guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Uh we uh we uh uh when I was working at Ford Rouge, we the whole crew of pipe fitters, we did all of the hot one seasons. Like we so like we would do them like what whatever, like once a month. We'd order plain you know fried wings and then bring like our my buddy Kramer would order the whole set. Like they they would sell like the season in a kit for like a hundred bucks. Yeah. And uh my god, dude. We so we we we would go through them and like the bomb is just asinine, it's so fucking hot. That's like the last sauce or you know, the last sauce pretty much every season.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

But I was gonna say the last sauce you ever eat. Right. But uh melt a whole sea through years.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

So we had been we had been doing this like hot ones thing at work for like six months. We're like, you know, once in a while, we you know, and then the hot chip challenge like came out and we're like, dude, let's do the fucking let's let's do the hot chip challenge. And no one wanted to do it except for me and Kramer. And uh so I bought I bought one for me, I bought one for him, I bought us both like a quart of fucking chocolate milk, and I was like, let's go, I'm ready. What I didn't realize is that when you're eating the hot wings ones, where you're like going from like sriracha to like's to fucking blah blah blah blah blah. Right, it's like a it's progressively hotter. The hot chip is from zero to the hottest thing you've ever eaten in your life. Yeah, instantly, instantly, dude. It was so bad I like started having a panic attack. Yeah. Oh, dude, there were people having heart attacks from that. Yeah, it was insane. I was like like I've I I was an apprentice at the time, and my and Kramer was my foreman. So, like, there's like power dynamic there where I should be like respectful. And I like I I busted out of the trailer door and like was pacing in between the two job trailers like a dog, and he's just like, Are you alright? And I'm like, Go fuck yourself! Don't you fucking go inside? Don't you don't even fucking look at me. I'm like, I went into the other job trailer where the pre-apprentice was, and he was microwaving his lunch. I was looking for a popsicle because sometimes we have these like electrolyte popsicles on job sites. So I go in there and I'm like looking for a popsicle. I open up the freezer, and the the the the whiff of his curry dish that he was microwaving hit me in the and I was like and I'd like grab my face and run out and just like screamed fucking magma out of my face. I was like, dude, that's the fuck the sensation of my whole head and throat being on and stomach being on fire from this chip. And then I smell his disgusting fucking curry.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:36

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Oh my god, dude, it was the most miserable I've ever been in my life. I just I went home. I went home.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

I was like, That's how I felt at my show. I was not gonna go home.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

I was just on my lunch break when I was supposed to go see tour. No. I went back onto the roof of the engine planet Ford Rouge, and I was like, dude, I gotta go take a shit or something. I gotta try to get this fucking poison out of me. And I I called my buddy Marty, I was working with, I was like, dude, I'm just I'm leaving. I'm fucking going home. He's like, You're alright? I'm like, no, no, dude.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:06

Fuck no. I thought about doing it while I had COVID.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:09

Yeah, well because you just trying to die? Or you were like, you know what? Fuck it. Secure enough.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:17

I didn't have taste or smell, so I was like, this is the perfect time to like move.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

I mean, you could still feel the burden. You can feel the burning. Even if you can't taste the rainbow, you can still feel the rainbow. Alright, that was Brad Steel's joke.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:29

But I don't I feel like you have to be able to taste to get the No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Like when you like I I I lost my taste and I would like drink pop and it would just be like, oh, it's probably wet.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:41

I don't think it's the taste necessarily that's spicy when it comes to spicy food. I think it's the acidity in the seeds because it's so acidic that when it reacts with your saliva, that's why like it burns so bad. Now don't quote me on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

But I thought that I thought the acidity was sour. I thought acid was sour.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:00

So yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is sour, but it's so acidic that it's like it's way above the pH scale. It's like a 14. Because basic is zero and then acidic is fourteen, right? Because that's that's the acidic, the acidity scale. Oh, okay. So I am autistic, guys. So no, I'm thinking about well, it's not well, so the guy who owns the venue that we uh did the show at, he grows his own peppers and he's like a whiz on all this stuff, and he's sitting there schooling us all nut.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

The the like the alkaline to acid scale, isn't that like it's it's one to seven and then seven to fourteen.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:36

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. So one of that for a fact. Now, everything else, I could could could 110% be wrong. We don't have a Jamie here like Joe Rogan does. We could just fucking chat G. You don't know how many times I'll wanna be like, Jamie, pull it up. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:51

Dude, I can't honestly, like, there's a handful of upgrades I want to do to the studio. Like I do, like I'm completely pivoting off of this fucking space.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:00

I know how are you gonna just change subject? Okay, well while hey while hey Paige, look that shit up.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

While you're doing that, I want to I do want to get a fucking I want to get a monitor up here that is connected to a laptop. So like if we so it references something or like we're like you want to chat GPT something.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:21

You could even do it, and it would be way cheaper than getting a monitor, is you could uh you could you could just put a piece of green screen right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

And then you could take it in the video editing, you could put what you have on the laptop on the green screen. Oh, right on, yeah. Yeah, so you could just do it right when you're doing your editing. Yeah. I've seen a couple people do it like that. Yeah, it could be a pretty smart thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:38

But uh but for like in the room though, it'd be nice to be like if I look something up, we can look at it and read it. Yeah, I see what you mean. But you can get a fucking TV for 200 bucks. That's true, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:48

You can get an element TV from like Walmart for Yeah, I'm unemployed, so I'm thinking with zero. How will you survive it? Uh DoorDash. Oh yeah. Okay. Oh seriously, I I lost my job within the last few weeks. So it's recent, but uh yeah. DoorDash every time deserved? Uh not necessarily in a way. And I mean it was my fault, but I think I think uh something can be your fault and your employer still be a bitch. So I think I think two the two things can mutually exist at the same time. So that's my opinion on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:27

It could be my fault, and also she can still be a bit or they can be a bitch. Dude, that's fucking hilarious. Oh man. Yeah. What do you got?

SPEAKER_08 1:07:35

I'm not really sure how to look into this, but we need a Jamie. I said, why is the food why does food taste spicy? And then it went into you had a head injury recently. So my god. And then it um Okay, this is But then I did it again.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

And I said, does no, you tell me you don't know.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:51

I said, is spice is food spicy because of the acidity? And it said short answer usually no. Spiciness is mainly caused by a chemic by chemical compounds like capsation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:03

Okay, so I do say a lot of stuff with confidence. Like I know what I'm talking about. Dude, I can't tell you how many times we've like. I trusted you. I know we loved it. With this voice, too, it's bad.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:14

Well, Andrew, like, have high functioning Asperger, but like I trusted that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:19

You know, it's like when I start talking to somebody, I'm on push a lie. I'm like, you know, I have credentials. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

So spicy does not equal acidic. Spiciness is mainly caused by chemical compounds like capsaicin and chili peppers that activate pain slash heat receptors in your mouth.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Capsaicin.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:39

Acidity is different. That's what gives food. Acidity is different. That's what gives foods a sour taste like lemons or vinegar and tangy bite. So, okay, so I was right about the sour part, but what acid foods can have irritative, sensitive irritate sensitive taste feel sure. Just click, just click skip like the 15 seconds twice. You know, this will be over. It's not uh but okay, wrap up rip fucking wrap it up in a bow. Uh the capsaicin activates pain and heat receptors. And the acid uh acidity is what gives tang and sour. That's what you can't.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:23

I thought this was like your special interests.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:25

No, not in any capacity. I just I just simply somebody so the reason the way the idea came to me is somebody at work when I had a job. Do that next time. But somebody uh somebody at work was like, uh, have you ever you ever eaten spicy food and then gone up and done stand-up? Because he'd been asking me a series of questions. Do you ever smoke weed and done stand-up? I'm like, yeah. He's like, You ever drank and done stand-up? I'm like, yeah. He's like, You ever done Coke and done stand-up? I'm like, Alright, listen, you're you a cop? No, no, he's like, have you have you ever eaten spicy food and done stand-up? And I'm like, I sat there for half a second, I'm like, I haven't, but god damn it, is that a good fucking idea? Yeah, yeah. And I just started my mind just started going. I'm like, oh, I can see so many motherfuckers drooling already. Yeah, and I didn't think so many people would want to be a part of it. But like it's fucking hilarious. And none of them want to buy a fucking ticket for it, but they all want to perform on it. They all want to be tortured. Uh no, I'm kidding. This they do. It's I I I wish I genuinely, as a producer, this is one of the shittiest things. I wish I could give everybody time on a show. You know, I wish every single person that filled out a Google form, I wish I could put them up. But it's so like, it's so many when you get 55 responses for one show and you only have eight spots, you're like, oh yeah, you're not gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:42

You always have to do like a lottery.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

Yeah, kind of to a degree. Well, I do like so I believe big in meritocracy, you know what I mean? So it merit the deserves above all, you know, if you're good, you're good, I'm putting you up. But also, like, my thing is like also, I think every single person deserves a chance to do anything. So even if I don't know, like if I mean even if I like a lot of time, I'll see someone to submit that I've never seen perform before, and I'm like, I have no idea, but I'd love to see you. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I would love to just take a chance, you know. But because like my big thing is like I just want the show to be good. That's all I care about, is I want the show to be good, I want it to be digestible to an audience, and I want to keep doing it. And and like I said, I wish I could put everyone up, but there's not enough time in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:27

Oh but I I I dude, I I love these fucking different kinds of shows that people are doing around town, like uh Andy's uh show at uh at Roadhouse. Yeah, that's a fun little bit. Doing like the panel where the like the you're talking shit during this you know that's fun, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:45

That's what they do at the they do it kind of similarly, similarly at the independent open mic at the shit show on Saturdays.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

Independent open mic. Oh, is that in hamstring?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:54

Yeah, Planet and Ham Dramatic.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

Do you know Logan, by the way? If you if you're Logan Monson?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:59

Uh maybe, but I probably don't.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:00

Um constantly, but uh I don't know him.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:04

I don't know him if he's an actor, probably. No, he's an he was a comic. Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:08

But I guess he hasn't been doing comed comedy for a while.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:10

I probably wouldn't have met him if it's if he hasn't been there in the last year, I probably haven't met him. But um no, it's what's how that's how they do it at the Independent in Ham Chamic. They have a couple panelists sit up there and then, you know, who roast you. Yeah, yeah, they do, but they don't it's kind of hit or miss some nights because a lot of the time they're drunk and they're you know, they're pat they're like half half awake, half alert, or they're you know, like the comic's bombing and there's not really much to work with, or there's like a lot of the time there's no audience. So there's like, you know, we're just there's a bunch of comics talking shit to comics. So but Andy's is when I his is is unique because everybody gets an opportunity to be a panelist there, and I think that's really fun too. Because it's like you don't you get two chances to be funny, you know, you get another shot. And I haven't done it yet, but I I want to. It's just every time I go there, it's everybody and their mothers signed up.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:00

So dude, uh I have a I have an idea for a mic that I'll I'll talk to you about off micro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we have uh yeah, I got an idea that I wanna I wanna I I don't I don't even know where I could do it. We've talked about like a low a bar that I used to like be a regular at. Right, like I know the owner, I could talk to him about it, but and yeah, he would like on a dead day, he would like getting extra fucking people there. So I might be able to convince him to have a mic there, but it's also it would be the second mic a week in Waterford, and I'm like, I don't know if uh I don't know if I'd be like pissing off people from one night stands doing it at a different spot.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:38

No, no, I don't think you would. The thing is, like the more mics we have, the better, because we have a lot of in in the scene. I we have mics every every night of the week. There is an open mic every single night of the week, no matter where you look in Michigan. The thing is, they're all so freaking spread apart. You know, you can do four mics in a night, you're gonna drive, but you're driving four hours, you're driving four and a half, five hours, and guaranteed. And that's like that's like when when people talk to say, like, oh I'm gonna I think I'll start an open mic, but I'm worried the comedy club and the city's gonna. I'm like, no, don't worry about them. They want you to start an open mic because they want a bigger scene out there. The more of the comedy that goes on in the city, the more people are gonna come to the city for comedy. You know what I mean? You're hyping me up. I'm telling you, do it, do it. Let's do it. I'm calling the bar right now. No, seriously, do an open mic because it's just the more like especially do it on like a Thursday or or a Friday or maybe even like a Tuesday, because we're we're in a drought of Friday, Thursday, and Tuesday mics. Like right now, we just have sidecar and one night stands in Dave Crumbly's Toledo room. Yeah, and two of those rooms, two of those three rooms are pre-booked. So you you know there's not a show up go up. Yeah, there's no show up go up. I mean, maybe one or two people might get a drop spot, but you know, not not the long list of comics that are in the room.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:53

See, for see for me, I I would if I'm running if I'm doing this mic, I would have to be Wednesday to Sunday, so I'd have to like wear in there. What did you say? What days?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

Thursday Thursdays, Fridays, and Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:03

Okay, so Thursdays I wouldn't want to do well, maybe I would want to do that, but it would it would stop me from being able to do that.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:09

Unless you did after one night like after one night stanza.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

Or you what you would do is do a Friday mic. Do a Friday mic out here in Waterford because the only Friday mics are Canton Brewworks and the Independent, and the Independent's inconsistent when they do their open mic on Fridays because some nights they do it and some nights they don't. So if you did uh 9 p.m. open mic on Fridays, you'd get a lot of foot traffic because people would come from Canton to go to Waterford and Waterford to Independent. Because Canton starts at 8, independent starts at 10 uh sign ups at 10:30 and showed up to start to 11. Okay, yeah. So you got a two you got an hour gap after Canton and then a two-hour gap from until Friday until independence.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

I wonder if that'd be harder to sell though, because Friday's a good night for the bar anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:56

Well, but it gives it a lot of people good opportunity. Well, it is a good night for the bar, but it also the thing about open mic is it increases drink sales because people that come for the open mic are gonna want to drink. You know, you're not gonna come and watch shitty comedy and being sober the whole time. You know what I mean? You're right. So you want to get fucked up and watch somebody slip and fall, metaphorically. That's that's the idea of going to an open mic night, at least from what I've observed from going to you know the 400 odd sum I've gone to in the year that I've done comedy. It's like the people that do regularly go to open mics, they kind of go because they want to see people fail, but they also want to see good comedy, but they also they're like, I want to see somebody mess up. Like they've seen an episode or two of Kill Tony, they watched somebody bomb, they want to see it in person, they want to see what it's like. And um, yeah, it's what it's like you gotta that that's part of the uh the contract between the the producer and the the bar owner is like hey, I'm gonna bring people here, and even if it's just comics, five of them are gonna buy a drink from the bar. You know, six of them are gonna buy a drink from the bar, three of them are gonna buy food. So yeah, I'm bringing you sales regardless. So it's it's an easy pitch, unless it's like one of those nights where they already run events or something like that. But like Friday would be a good night to do an open mic, because like I said, we only have the two, and one of the two is inconsistent when they run. Yeah, and it gives all the other non like fully working comics an opportunity to perform on a Friday night, which is the best night to perform on because that's when everybody's out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

So well, fuck it. Uh I'll tell you about the like the format that I was flirting with. So you gotta put it out into the microphone. I'm gonna do it on my mic. Fuck it. Don't do it on the mic. It's fine.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:27

Someone's gonna steal your idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:28

Uh no, well, I mean, we get three fucking downloads of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:32

You know, I was so worried about somebody stealing my idea for the spicy show. The only way to counteract it is just do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:37

Well, people are lazy. People are lazy and they're not gonna do it. So I so I'm I have confidence that there's a motherfucker out there who's like, Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:45

Watch me! Watch this shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:46

I'm about to be the next so this I had this idea of doing a storytelling show where you do you get to do a three-minute or five-minute story, but there's a panel of comedians who judge the judge the performance and then kind of decide whether or not that story's true. So it's almost like uh you're you can either decide to tell a true story or tell a lie. Oh yeah. So like it's it's it almost plays out like court, and then if I I don't I don't have it completely figured out. Yeah. But I do I do want to do it like uh like you're almost like you're almost put on trial when your set's over. Yeah. And then like the details.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:35

I can I can kind of see that. I mean it's kind of like a like a kill Tony S where they interview after you set, but like you could um I I think you could tweak that a little bit. You can do it more like do your set, but then we're gonna sit there and work through the first couple of jokes that you did and really grill you on it. Because I think a lot of comics need that. A lot of comics because they'll do a joke the same way every time, and they'll make get laughs here, get laughs there, bomb here, bomb there, but they keep doing the same joke, like I'm a culprit of it, until somebody checks them on it. Yeah, you know, somebody's like, hey, that doesn't that doesn't make sense. You know, when you say it like that, I don't understand what you're going for. And then they're like, Really? Okay, fuck, now I've got to rewrite the joke out. And that I think that is what a lot of people are.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:14

But how could that how could the show play out though?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:17

Well you have you have 12 comics go up, you have them do five minutes each, and you work through the first two minutes of their five minute set, and you give them you have real working comedians sit on the panel and tell them like that made sense. I like that, but you need to change this angle because the audience can't understand what you're trying to say. Yeah, you know what I mean? Because it's it's similar to Kill Tony, but you're not giving them opportunities and you're just giving them advice. Yeah, because I think like storytelling, I just I mean it's a good idea, but I just that's hard to it's hard to write a complete lie in story format.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:48

Oh, you'd be surprised. Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:50

Because I have a I've always had a different Well, my my thing is like I can write a lie out, but I'm it's really hard for me to push it in story format. Like I can tell you a quick lie and I can push it, but it's it's really hard if I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:02

So I wonder okay, so I wonder if the format shouldn't be lie or not a lie. Maybe it should be storytelling and then like hey, you tell us a story, and then we'll break down the story, like you know, you you tell what you want in like a five-minute story, and then when it's over, you you have a conversation about the story with the panel. Yeah. But I I I thought it would be fun to do this like a court angle. Like where you're like, we're like the comedians like put on trial. Like your comedians put on trial for like what he's talking about. And then you could have like a verdict at the end of the show of like, okay, this this is the you know, I don't know, I have to I have to workshop this more.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:46

I'll do that. I've got so many different ideas for shows, but I don't like one word. Like I have one where it was I was it was actually watching a TikTok made me think of it as like, what if we did all the parody movies? You know, like Vampires Suck, you know, the one that they did about Twilight, yeah, and just reacted to them on stage. Just like played snippets of them and were just like, Man, what the fuck? You know, and just like describe the scene.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:14

It's almost like a reaction channel, but like live in person.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:17

And then I was thinking about that gets so boring after the first like 20 minutes of it. I'll be like, alright, do a new movie now or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:24

You'd almost have to do like a compilation, like clip apart or clip in the dumbest moments.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:29

Yeah, and then it begs the question: are there enough parody movies out there to do more than one show with the movie?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:33

Well, you could just do bad movies. Yeah, I mean, there's so many. Yeah, we were talking about this a couple episodes ago with uh the drummer of Forge the Sun, where like we both love really terrible pun-based movies, like Santa Jaws. Oh yeah, fucking terrible. It's a fucking stupid joke. And someone made an entire movie about a a shark that has a Santa head on, you know, or there was a movie Zombie Ass. It's just a zombie strain that climbs up people. Sharknado, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:04

Or Sharknado 2, 3, 4, or 5, or 6, or Sharknado 7 to a CWU. Um the fact that they kept making those movies is insane. I was like, I I I don't know why, but when I was probably 13 years old when I watched the first one, and so I kind of sort of didn't w think that it was gonna be a stupid, terribly built, put-together movie. I thought, like, eh, okay, so this is a movie. Like, let's watch a movie. And then uh at the end of the movie, I watched them chainsaw open the shark, and the lady that got eaten by the shark was perfectly fine. I was like, at the very least, she'd have her stomach cut open because of the chainsaw.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:44

Like, I'm like, I'm like, all right, well, why don't we hire this guy to be a lumberjack?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:49

Because he's got the best damn skill in the chainsaw on the West. Right. Yeah, dude, that's so dumb. Um, my Apple Watch is telling me to stand up. Been sitting long enough apparently.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:01

Oh dude, dude, I was uh I I've I've taken a break from the gym for the last like two weeks because I was having a really bad time with my asthma. But there was uh, but like my watch would I would go work out and burn like 1300 calories in like a fucking brutal like Olympic lifting workout. Yeah. And then I like I'd shower and sit down, and my watch would be like, Don't forget to move this hour. I'm like, bitch, what?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:25

Like I burn more calories than most people do all day. I used to go to the gym religiously, and then since I do comedy, I don't I don't have time for it anymore. And I got this Apple Watch for Christmas, and so I've never had one before. I didn't know what it does. And I was sitting in a rocking chair, I was rocking back and forth, and it was like, hey, it looks like you're exercising. Would you like to log that? I'm like, God, I've set the bar too low.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:49

Yeah, I was like, wow, I need to go to the gym.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:53

Mine will do it sometimes when I'm walking.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:55

Yeah. I was gonna say, you you'd fuck you, you in your competition with your cousin, like we were we were sitting, I think we were watching Kill Tony in our in our Tony in our basement, and uh she just like gets up and starts just like flopping around. I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, I gotta get more points because Jessica's ahead of me. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me right now? You just gotta kind of flail around while we watch a show. I was dancing.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:20

I mean, hey, I was not dancing. I mean, okay, so I will admit, I don't know if this is an autistic thing or not, but I'll be doing push-ups in between anime episodes, okay? I'm like, I'll be watching Goku kick some ass. I'm like, I need to kick some ass down.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:35

Well, anime show is absolutely the show to hype you up to get you in the mood for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:39

Well, I don't know. Like, I I used I have this really bad issue with sitting still, and like I get in my head really fast about it, so I always have to move around. Like, even right now, like this is a whole time we've been sitting here for over an hour, and my legs have not stopped moving. They've been bouncing ever since I said that. Yeah, my ADHD is so bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:58

Yeah. What uh what animes do you watch?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:01

Uh so I grew up on like uh my my first one was Full Metal Alchemist. That was the first one I've really got exposed to. Love that. And then I started Bleach and I never turned back. Like I watched the first three seasons of Bleach on Netflix, and I was like, all right, that's all there is. There's no more. And then I got a Hulu subscription one day, and I looked, and there were 27 fucking seasons, and my little 14-year-old mine exploded. Yes! Yeah, but I love that one. I mean, I grew up on Dragon Ball Z, obviously. And then um old are you? I'm 24. Oh, 24.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:34

Okay. I was gonna say you I yeah, I thought you were a little bit younger than me. Yeah. Younger than me. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:43

I'm 32. I thought you were gonna say older. I'm like, God, dude, what happened to you? So I've met people where they're like, how old are you? And I'm like, I'm 20, 24, and they're like, wow, dude, I'm 19. I'm like, what the fuck? Are you okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:58

I'm like, Jesus. Yeah, yeah. I'm 32. So I grew up on Dragon Ball Z, and then I did not watch any anime for like a long time. Yeah. Because it was, I don't know, like you see like a couple of those kids that run to the cafeteria with their arms behind their back, you know, in high school, and you're like, I probably should stop watching that shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:18

The urge to be one of them was so high. I was gonna say, were you one of them? No, no, I was too like I'm high function Answers. I hate it. No, when I like me and my family, we never acknowledged it. When we found out, we we pretended it didn't exist. We we we just like we're like we pretended like it was like the homeless people in Ann Arbor.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:38

We're like if you don't look it doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:43

Pages of BCBA. Oh, because I don't know. Like it is not something we ever talk about. My mom sat me down one day and she's like, son, you're retarded. And then that was it again. That was it, I was maybe eight. Yeah, that was that when you got diagnosed? No, I was diagnosed when I was four. Oh, they didn't. I was diagnosed with high-functioning Asperger's and ADHD. And um, yeah, no, it's it's definitely different. It's different because nobody really knows until you spend a long time with me. And then it sneaks up on you out of nowhere, like chlamydia.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:14

It's just like your hair's falling on the bag. It kind of stings when I pee. Paige works with uh autistic kids for a long time. She's a BCP.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:25

Yeah. No, they um they they tried to uh they like they tried they tried to like Beethoven me in school. They were like giving me random musical instruments. They're like, we're gonna find this, we're gonna find this stuff. Is that real?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

Yeah, dude. I remember they pulled me out of school and like we're gonna find what he's good at.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:44

We're playing violins and they did stuff, and I'm like, I didn't know what was going on. I just have fragment memories of playing violin. And like, like, they're like, we're gonna know they're good at something. We're gonna like give me good. Count cards and there's there's a couple Hollywood producers in the background that are like, oh my god, come on, make one of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:07

Fucking having them count cards. Oh man, if you follow the accountant, apparently he'd be a really good assassin.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:17

Oh, I'm gonna bring that joke back, you guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:20

His reaction made me once fucking that's fucking hilarious. Little did they know it was comedy.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:26

Yeah, no, seriously, they they really did that, but I had an I an IEP mile until I got into a rich white high school and they told me my test scores were too high. They were like, nope, you're too smart. And so I got no individualized education at that point. Oh my god. That made it was so hard. It was really hard because it was overstimulating and there was so many things happening all at once, and then of course, drug addict mom. So that made things like way, way so much better.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:52

Um they didn't give you like they just went IEP to nothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause I moved, I was I was I went to a state, did half of kindergarten in Michigan, and we moved, and then middle of my kindergarten year, and then I repeated kindergarten in North Carolina, and then uh yeah, they they had an IEP in North Carolina for me the entire time, but when I moved to Ohio, they're like, nah, fuck this dude. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:17

What didn't not how that works?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:19

Yeah, yeah, no, they didn't it it was it was a challenge, man. Growing up was fun, it was definitely interesting.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:26

I used to be a teacher before I was a behavior analyst, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:30

Well she was the resource room concept.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:33

Well the way you fact check everything, you seem like one.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:38

I I usually know it's usually him that's fact checking. I'll just give it.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:42

Yeah, but I start I started doing that, not because I'm like, oh, everyone's a liar, but like you kind of have to a certain point. Well, like if someone comes on the show and says some malarkey, then like we get held accountable. I'm like, wait, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:55

You posted on your channel on your page, and then people believe it. Yeah, that was like, yeah, it's like, you know, don't take ivermectum. Don't take horse anywhere, Mr. You can absolutely take ivermectum.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:06

Okay, you can take ivermectin. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:11

It's it's won the Nobel Prize. Like, it's fucking that was the joke.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:16

The joke was that was a whole fucking uh oh man. Yeah, it's oh no, this is fun, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:22

Yeah, it's funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:23

This is fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:25

This place is also a time warp. Like, uh I I love having conversations and just like holding people captive, like, tell me more, tell me more, because everyone has such fucking weird lives.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:35

Like, yeah, dude. Oh no, it's everybody has a different story, dude. Everybody comes from these like you you think you know something about somebody when you look at them, and then you actually have a conversation with them. You're like, wow. Yeah. Oh yeah, especially.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:47

Yeah, that that has been big for me because I I definitely had preconceived notions of people of like just based on fashion or cho you know, whatever fucking music choices or whatever, and then you sit down and talk with them, you're like, holy fuck, I didn't realize that this person had you know oh yeah, there's there's a whole story, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:05

There's like everybody has a real story. Like we we get caught up in this this easy easy thing of just calling people NPCs, you know, people that aren't in our inner circle or in our like direct life, or like they're an NPC, they're an NPC. It's like no, like they are a real person. Like, we're all individuals. We as much as we like to say we're in we're in a simulation, it's all a simulation, like okay, even if it is a simulation, I still stubbed my toe the other day and it hurt pretty fucking bad. So you know, like I don't care how much of a simulation it is, it feels pretty real to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:36

And you gotta start thinking about it. I do love calling someone an NPC though. It is fun, though. It's the fucking best joke.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:43

You know what I love telling people?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:44

I love telling people they look like they drop common loo because they don't know how to react to that because most people don't know what that means. And the people that do are like, dude, that's fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:56

I got the fucking Skyrim jokes with killed by buddy Lewis. Oh he he had a bunch of shit in his pockets one day at work, and I was like, you are overencumbered. Took him out. You are overweight. Drink a potion of weight. You gotta take some shit out of your pocket.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:14

Dude, you dropped the cheese wheels, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:16

Dude. Yeah, so uh do you want to get into the drug addiction stuff? Uh I mean we don't have to.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:22

We we can touch on it a little bit. Um, so like for the sake of saving my family some scruff, because they hate it when I talk about it. Um You don't have to. No, no, it's it's cool. I'll I'll make jokes about it. So at some point I do have to touch about it on some public, formal kind of setting. Is yeah, my mom, she she was a drug addict, and she uh it didn't just start with heroin. You know, she did the doctors screwed her over when she got in a car accident, she got on pain pills for you know 19 years, so that doesn't help, it doesn't add to it. And but she was an amazing woman. So the I just want to say to everybody, listen, yeah, if you've heard my jokes, you've heard me rag on her, I just want to say that she was an amazing person who tried her hardest. Uh the problem with heroin is that it works really well. It is incredibly powerful and it takes over your life utterly and completely. Yeah. And it it was tough, man. It was tough being a kid and experiencing all that because I was still learning how to be a person and looking trying to expect her to teach me that, and she was too consumed with this one thing that was literally killing her from the inside out. And that's uh shout out to all the people who grew up with addict parents because you are a soldier for that. Okay. That's not an easy life. It's not because you have to raise yourself, right? You you come out the gate like like being she died when I was 18, and so I was like kind of like a bare nerve exposed to the world, you know, at 18. So it was like raw and real for me, and it was all happening all at once, and it's like something I learned a lot. It's like because I I raised myself, so I'm very, very uh self-reliant, and I don't like to rely on other people, and I don't like it when other people try to teach me things, like at least I didn't before, and it was very like it rubbed me wrong when people try to give me advice, and it was like something I had to really try to force myself to understand because like I know you raised yourself dude, but there's so many things to learn out there, there's so many ways to do things, and that's it's hard, it is really difficult, but you know, like you six years after the fact you learn to live with it in certain ways, and you never get over it, and you don't necessarily heal from it, but if you can turn around and laugh at it and you can make light of the situation and you can smile about it, I think that's the best we can do, you know? It's like a scar, it's like the scar won't go away, but you know, maybe draw a smiley face, you know, make a make it make a little dick out of it. I don't know. Let's let's make it silly, let's let's have a little fun with it, because if we don't, then it's just gonna be sad the whole time, you know? It's like it's like my family, this is my one issue with them, is like they want to live in this perpetual state of of sadness about it, and they don't ever want to like move on from it. And it's like you when it's stuff like that, you you've got to learn how to laugh at it. You got to, because otherwise you're just gonna be stuck with it your whole life. There's just this black hole inside you. And and learning to laugh at that one terrible thing has taught me how to learn to laugh at everything, you know, like everything that happens to me, even in the moment when I'm negatively reacting to it when it right there when it happens, you know, like say my car breaks down on the freeway and I'm screaming, I'm hitting my steering wheel. Well, like this happened to me literally. Like, we so I have this issue where I don't store napkins in my car, and we just stashed a bunch of fast food napkins in my car, and then my uh my mass airflow sensor blows on me in the middle of the freeway, so I had to have it towed out to a shop, and I'm like, all those fast food napkins, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:46

And it's like you have to restock it.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:47

Yeah, exactly. So it's like it's just like just like even though I was you know, everything was falling apart on me all at once. It's like you gotta be able to take just like one little jab at it because that's what makes it better. Otherwise, it all sucks and it is all shit, and we're all just shoveling shit for the rest of our lives. Yeah, you know, and I'd rather not do that. I'd rather, you know, shuffle shit with a smile on my face.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:09

Right, right. Yeah, you gotta make your own conditions, man. You gotta make your own conditions. We b we both have similar stories in our lives of people that we've lost or or dealt with people that are addicted and battling addiction. Uh Paige's brother passed away from his battle with addiction. And so like so we empathize in the most fucking fully way. I mean, I I I was not raised like that. Thank God, man. I I but I know people that were, and I know what a hell it can be where stability is like like when you like I my my buddy um my my my buddy that was raised in this in a similar situation. I remember him saying like stability felt like prison, like it felt like control, like because things were so chaotic for him for so long that as soon as he got around people that were stable and cared about it. He was like in defensive mode, going like, who the fuck why are you doing what are you doing? What are you trying to do to me?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:12

Well, it's like shout out to my girlfriend. She's like, she's the most amazing person in the world. I don't know how to be loved properly. You know, it's like she does things for me, and it's like I react to him negatively because I'm like, you can stop it. Don't do that. Like, I'm not used to somebody caring, you know, and that's such a like that is so true. That that that being in that constant state of of of uh chaos and and reacting to chaos and always just not knowing what's gonna happen next. And then you're in an environment where you do know what's gonna happen next. You freak out, like your body's like, whoo, I don't know how to be normal anymore. Yeah, and it's yeah, it's it's it's definitely I think the hardest part about it is watching somebody you know lose themselves completely. That's the hard part is watching that person you knew disappear. You know, that that person, that bright energy, that smile, that whatever it is, whoever they were, you know, whether they pick their boogers and put it on their car door or they flip people off when they cut them off on the freeway. You lose that. And then you become a shell of the big thing. Yeah, that's what drugs do. The drugs take that away from you. They they take that and give you this 30-second feeling where you're relaxed for a few seconds. Because I I you know I'm a recovery drug addict, I'm six years sober, and and that's you know, like, trust me, I know what it feels like, I know what the relief is, and it is not worth it, man. It's like you separate from it takes a long time to realize.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:33

So you got sober right around the time that your mom passed away.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was I was addicted to pain pills for two years, and I did like when she died, I was like, eh, I'm not gonna die too. You know, I was like, might as well quit now. And I did, and it was hard. That was the hardest shit to kick ever, man. Because I didn't sleep for two months. Yeah, I didn't sleep for two months straight. That was easier. Restless nights like yeah, just laying in the bed hoping that you fall asleep eventually. Yeah, and but like after that second month, everything became so much easier. Yeah, life became easier.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:03

Dude, that's gonna be fucking difficult. It is to be in your own battle and and and go like, yeah, like my mom lost her. So what do I do? Like, yeah, that's fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:13

Yeah, it's it's not it's not it would it hasn't been easy for me, but that's like why comedy is so uh important to me. It is it is it is it's everything to me because I don't have anything else. Like I'm an orphan, I don't have a mom, I don't have a dad, my brother's 900 miles away from me, is the only family I've left. And you know, it's like that's all I have is I have my girlfriend, my dog, and my stand-up, and that's why I give it everything that I've got. Because it's I I've for so long after my mom passed away, I searched for something, something to like hold on to, and I finally found it in its stand-up.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:48

Well, dude, I haven't seen you do stand-up yet, but talking to you for an hour and a half, I'm a fan of you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:52

I appreciate that. Yeah, hell yeah, man. Yeah, we'll I'll give you guys some of my dates and stuff, and of course come out to the show on March, and you guys will get them for free. Let you guys in the market tickets. So that was my plan! Yeah, um, but again, guys, check it out. March 14th, Celine, Michigan. The flyers out. I'm paying out of my ass for promotion, so I hope you've seen it already.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:15

God, I hope you don't suck at stand-up because I'm such a fan of you as a person.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:18

No, I I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say I'm I'm I'm not gonna like because I'm a very I try to be a humble person. I think I've earned I think what I've done in the 11 months that I've done stand-up says that I've done 11 months of stand-up. Right on. You know, you know, I think I think what from what the experience that I've had and then the the effort that I've put into it, you watch me go up on my best days and you're like, I can see that he's been working hard. Hell yeah. You know what I mean? He's funny and he works hard. That's I wouldn't say you're gonna see me and be like, he's an amazing, the best stand-up comic ever, you know, but you'll see me and you'll see the work. You'll see the effort. You'll see, yeah, you'll see it.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:56

Hell yeah, dude. We should wrap up, but that guy said it's a good one. This is been amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:00

This is great time. I haven't been sweating, you guys have been sweating.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:03

After after fucking after sitting with me for almost two hours, I'm a I'm a I'm a fucking fan of you as a person. Thank you, man. Thank you for coming out, dude. Yeah, I this is why I love this. I've made so many friends from just having this fucking platform, man. I yeah, I love it. I love it, dude. I get to meet people that I would have never crossed paths with otherwise.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:21

Yeah, no, this is this has been fun. Yeah, I I haven't I've been sitting here this entire time and I've had fun. You know, yeah. If you guys aren't a fan and you're not following them yet, follow them. What are you doing? I appreciate you. These guys are awesome. Hell yeah. All right, buddy. Let's get out of here. Oh, yeah, plug your dates. Um so March 10th, I'll be at the Green Door in Lansing. March 14th, of course, we've got um we've got hot set comedy, which is our second show, so please sure, be sure to check that out. Tickets are on sale. Uh, March 18th, I'll be in West Michigan doing a showcase. Unfortunately, I do not have a location for that one. And then uh yeah, that's it. That's all I got for right now. But again, thank you guys so much. Thank you two, most importantly, for curating the scene and adding to the scene.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:05

Oh, dude, fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:06

Because music or comedy, whatever it is, thank you for helping creators.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:10

Appreciate it, man. Thanks, brother. I think purpose is not survival, it's it's finding purpose in white.