Everything Happens at 3AM with Chad Prather

Jeff is joined by fellow comedian, author, social commentator and musician Chad Prather this episode! Both men have been fans of the other for quite some time and it's a joy to see them share stories, their faith and amazing conversation! Chad started a morning devotion that has caught on called 'Before the Noise' and he talks his path and how God has always pushed him to do things whether he was ready or not.. even if its at 3 in the morning!

👇 In this episode:
Listening When God Talks to You
Blocking Out the Noise
God Making You Ready When You Might Not Be

How to find Chad Prather
Instagram: @watchchad
www.watchchad.com

🎧 More episodes: Who Gave Jeff Allen a Podcast?
🎟️ Tickets at JeffAllenComedy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And we get a call from him. He was at a showcase. I bombed at the showcase. Have you ever done one of those at the Melrose Improv? You know, where you're like 20th out of 25 guys. Yeah. Just bomb miserably. And we could call out to LA for a meeting. And uh I said, I'm curious, why am I here? He goes, I was at the showcase uh a couple weeks ago, and I don't even remember if you were funny or not. I go, I wasn't. That's why I'm wondering why I am here. He said, All I remember is you smiled. And I remember leaning over to my assistant and going, I remember when comedians were relatively happy people. So anyway, I get a development deal based on that. Right. Just because I walked on stage and I was smiling. All right. Hey everybody, this is Jeff Allen. Welcome to Who Gave Jeff Allen a podcast? We're gonna find you. There's six billion of you out there, and I know one of you gave this to me, and I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna make your life miserable. But until then, we are here. Uh just a couple mentions here. Uh June 16th through 18. I am in California, SoCal. I'm in San Diego, Irvine Improv, Burbank at Flappers, uh, those three shows. San Diego, I think it's Mic Drop is the club. Uh, really like that one. Gonna play some golf while I'm out there and hopefully uh uh make some people laugh. So San Diego, Irvine, Burbank, come on out. Tickets at jeffalloncomedy.com and do not buy tickets from any other website because of scammers. Believe me, I've had people, uh, unfortunately, my audience, this may shock you, over 60, uh, not really adept on the computer. They buy these tickets and they pay like $120, which shocks me that you would pay $120 to see what I have to do. But and then they get to the club and they find out they can't get a seat because it's a fake ticket. And um they want they they write to me going, could you refund my $120? And you know, there's a part of me, I'm just gonna say, I think about it, but it fleets, that that thought fleets, it leaves. But um, don't buy tickets from anywhere else uh other than my website or the uh club's website uh directly. And um, we'll see you out there. Uh what else is going on? We finished the pilot for the book, Are We There Yet? Um and uh really got to see the rough cut. Uh proud of it. We're gonna be shopping it. Uh I forgot the card. I got 500 of them, and I forgot the card. We're still looking for a little bit of funding for the last bit of edit. Um and uh you can go to my website, jeffalincomedy.com, and there's a QR code. Go on there. It's a 501c. Uh anything, $10, $15, $20, $25. Uh, we're just trying to put the last bit of this thing together, and then uh we're gonna shop it out there and hopefully tell the story uh of God's restoration and redemption. That's why we wanted to control the finances so that we can control the creative content. Um you can't tell stories if you don't own it. And uh we're uh we were concerned because of the uh industry the way it is, that when you uh come to them, uh they'll all they'll love the alcohol, the drugs, the debauchery. But when you get to the part about Christ's love and Christ's restoration and redemption of a life um uh gone bad, uh then they're gonna want to change that. But they can't because we own it. And uh we will tell the story the way God intended it to be told. Hopefully, um that's our our plan. Anyway, uh anything else, uh Caroline? Caroline? Caroline, uh nothing else. That's uh that's all the um I know there's a bunch of other things that'll hit me on my way home as I'm driving home. Uh I have been looking forward to this guest uh for for since we booked him, and uh probably prior to that, because I'm I I enjoy his work. Um and uh Chad Prather. Uh Prather?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Praether?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Praether.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

I've answered to a lot of things in life. Yeah. My dad always my late father would say Praether, he'd correct people, and I was like, I've been called so many bad things. Prather ain't the worst. Prather. Okay, Chad Prather, yeah. Prather. Chad Prather. I'll keep you confused.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

You are a comedian, a commentator, a speaker, an entrepreneur known for mixing humor, faith, and straight shooting cultural commentary, which is what I liked about you. Often called a modern-day Will Rogers. Uh, my audience, half of them were alive when Will was.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

They remember when he was mayor of Beverly Hills.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Uh and anyway, um uh built a massive uh following through viral videos, stand-up comedy, and hit shows before the noise. I'm gonna talk to you about that and then Chad Prather. Have we decided it's Praether or Prather?

SPEAKER_03 4:58

You call me Chad. I'm like Oprah. I'm like Madonna. I have one name.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Chad, okay. Where he tackles faith, culture, politics, and personal responsibility. Well, that's a rough one in this culture. Nobody knows what that is. That's interesting. I just saw uh I'm listening to a book on tape, and um they were talking about the Beatitudes where Jesus is not condemning. He's the Holy Spirit will convict. It will not condemn.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

And it's funny because I've always felt condemned when I committed sins. Shockingly, I do commit sins, uh, with a mix of conviction and comedy. In 2022, Chad ran for governor of Texas. I love that. Uh, bringing his message of constitutional freedom, common sense, and individual liberty into a political world. Today he continues touring the country with sold-out live events while building a growing media and business platform that reaches millions. Well, this will take care of that. Uh we're still looking for the guy that gave me this. Whether he's on stage behind a microphone or online, Chan's known for challenging people to think deeper, laugh harder, and stand firm in what they believe. And I can attest to that because a uh a fan of yours. He's a father of four. God bless you for populating it. Uh, all I did was replace me in Tammy. Actually, Tammy told me years ago. But I'd know when you're going to turn out the way it turned out, I would have had more children with you. And like a lot of you, it took me a while to find the compliment in that. So anyway, I was looking for it. Uh, proudly calls both Texas and Tennessee home. So God bless you, Chad Prather, for coming in here and uh and uh coming with us today. Thanks for having me. Oh, absolutely, man.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah, you mentioned the scammer thing. That's wild, isn't it? The the scam when people come to your show and they're like, Man, I got or they'll send you a message and say, Your shows are too expensive for me to go to. Right. And I'm like, they're $25, $35. Right. They're like, well, this was $155. And I was like, you're on the wrong site.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Well, that's it. And it's so funny, I didn't even realize it. Uh I bought Chris Stapleton tickets, and uh I don't know if I paid way too much because anymore, those concerts are ridiculous. I spent to take my beautiful wife eight hundred dollars a ticket to see J uh Justin Timberlake in Atlanta. I know, and I looked at the audience. Now you would think Justin Timberlake ten years ago would have a pretty younger youngish skew. It was all 40 to 60 year old women and their husbands were just sitting there going.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

It's an amazing phenomenon. I was in Vegas this weekend and we went to Blake Shelton's show. Yeah. And my road manager for years, he used to say, I know a Chad Praether audience when I see it. Like he'd see them. You know how you'll see people like you'll look outside the venue and down the street, there's people coming from dinner or drinks across the road, and you'll just see them there. You know they're coming to the show. You just recognize your people. And he would say, I can always recognize Chad Praether audience. And I was like, Yeah, they're older, but they have money. Like they can afford to be here. We went to Blake Shelton, and everybody one, they need they need to they need Ozympic or something. Like they need to there were some people who couldn't fit in the chair, Jeff. I mean, I was like, but but I'm like, these are my people. These are my people. But it's amazing when you you think that the demographic's gonna skew a certain way. And you're right when you say this older generation, they don't understand the internet. And AI coming along is crazy. I had a lady at a show in Raleigh, North Carolina last year. She got scammed out of $103,000, thought she was loaning it to me for two weeks. A guy in I don't know, Southeast Asia was praying with her, writing out prayers and like talking to her, and she thought she was loaning that to me. It's gone. I mean, I've seen people scam for $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, same way, but $130,000. Be careful out there.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

We need to have somebody on the show that's in uh cybercrimes or something.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

I got a guy who can do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Oh, that would be great. I got a guy who's good on shows. Because it's common within people over 60. Uh, you know, my father-in-law would click on things, and my Tammy, he had nothing. I mean, so fortunately he had nothing to take. But Tammy would tell him, you know, pop, you just can't be clicking on things, you know, that comes into your you know, text message, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Or you answer to it. Somebody sends you a question, you're like, Who is this? Don't even do that. Yeah, nah, if I don't recognize it. And I go, I've been in the wrong business all this time.

unknown 9:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Well, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I was telling Tam, I don't where were we at? Um gosh, where were we just at? Cleveland. Um uh I was doing Hilarities last week. And uh parking for the for the Cleveland Indians or Guardians, yeah. Indians uh game 50 bucks to park a car. I told her when I come back my next life, I'm building parking garages. Yeah. Because I could run one of those. Wouldn't you like to know?

SPEAKER_03 10:05

I mean, you don't even have to learn math. Like you just need to fix the potholes.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

When it happens, that's it. I can run a garage. I could. Nothing else. I mean, we're gonna I can yell at a guy. No inventory, no, you know, you don't have to keep track of anything, you know? And uh, but yeah, it was yeah, fifty bucks one place, 45 in another, 35. I mean, to park the car. Now you're looking at the cost of the tickets and stuff, which is why I like working the churches, uh, because the one, there's no venue costs, don't parking costs. And there's built-in marketing. And there's built yeah, absolutely. It's like it's their own little city and stuff. But I just liked it for the for the cost. Uh went round and round with uh my management as you know, because you charge one thing in a club and they want to charge the same thing in a church. And I go, you can't do that. You can't do it. These people, a lot of them are on fixed incomes, and you know, they just want a night out to you know to laugh. So please, um before you buy a ticket to either one of our shows, make sure it's uh it's a trusted website and um of from the venue. And um so when did you get into stand-up?

SPEAKER_03 11:14

15 years. Uh I mean, which by stand-up standards, that's I'm still a rookie. Yeah. Uh I went, I did my comedy career opposite of what everybody else does. So most guys starting at an open mic, or they'll get in a comedy club, or they're opening for someone, and they get some laughs, and then maybe they start doing bigger rooms and headlining, and then they might end up getting uh a social media following, and then they might get a TV show. I had a TV show that during the TV show got a huge, massive social media following from going viral, doing little clips, talking in my truck, the dog in the backseat, and then had a friend of mine who said it occurred to you that maybe they wanted to come out and see the dog? That's exactly what it was because when I saw the numbers go down, let me tell you, it's the truth. When I saw when I started seeing my social media numbers go down, I said, Yeah, I got a plan for this. Let's put a dog in the backseat. And then I started when I would do the live shows. I'm telling you this weekend I'll be in in Arkansas. I'll be doing a weekend this week. Someone will ask me, where's the dog? And they will like I'm supposed to bring the dog and let it just sit on stage with me every everywhere I go. They want to ask about the dog. So I had a friend who said, Why don't you do comedy? And I go, Well, I'm not a comic. I tell funny stories, but I'm not a comic, and there's a massive difference. I'm more of a humorist. And he said, Who cares as long as they're buying tickets? And so I said, Well, I want to honor the craft of comedy. Started doing some shows and developed it, you know, and had a had a set and you know, worked on an hour, and then but I was doing because of the my social media following, I'd still never been in a comedy club. I was doing 1,200 people. I was doing 3,500 people, I was doing these massive deals, and then COVID hit. COVID hit and everything tanked, and the first thing that opened back up was clubs because they're technically.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Well, you were in Texas. I was in Texas. That's right, clubs opened up at 25%.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

So I could go back to Oklahoma as well. So it was easy access. I could go to Oklahoma, I could go to Texas. You could you can make a you can make a living in Oklahoma and Texas and never leave those two states. Texas, you can make a living. You never have to go anywhere else. So I was doing that, and then and then uh so I've always kind of been running simultaneous tracks with various things that I was up to. But the comedy thing, uh, because inevitably I'll do something, and people say, Well, I didn't know you did this. Like I'll do music. Because I didn't know you sang and played a guitar, we didn't know. And I've always tried to mix all those together, and it's so I still to this day I always tell people, I'm really not a comic. Because it's comics, they but just because of where it came from. And then we've got comedian friends who say, You really gotta stop saying that, because you are. And I I just didn't grind it out in the trenches the way a lot of guys are. I don't apologize for that. I mean, that's that's you know, it's the way it's the way God took the path.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I'm taking a guy out with me now, um, and Carolyn and I have talked about it. Um, a young guy, 35, he's been at it about 14 months, and he's working, you know, relatively sold-out shows with an audience that's prime and ready to go. And part of me thinks I'm enabling him to think that this is real. This is not the way it, you know, somebody 14 months in the business, yeah. You know, and he's getting better and better and better, which makes me feel good. I uh had I not seen any growth, I'd probably pick somebody else up. But to see the growth and the and the um uh but it's not real. That's certainly not the way I started.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

I've got a guy that went on the road with me for six years, and our our voices are very different now. Um, and I basically told him, I said it's time for you to go out and do your thing. Like you've I taught him the business side of comedy. He's he's funny, he's a hilarious comic. Uh and but he didn't know the business side of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

That's important uh that people don't understand. Uh it it and I've heard this, it's a cliche, but it's true. Show business. You know, you can have the show. I can attest to that. I ran myself into the ground. I mean when I got to Nashville in the 90s, I was bankrupt and I owed the IRS piles of money, right? Running my own career. Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Well, none of them none of that's changed for me. I'm still there. You just know the I just I understand it now. I know why the letters are coming in the mail.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Well, explains explains the beard because when you got a beard, you can pontificate and sound.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

I don't dye the gray anymore. Just let it go. Maybe they'll think they'll think that there's wisdom in there. There's not any. There's no wisdom. But I I I just I've always said if if you want to understand the secret to any success I have, you've got to be comfortable with the vocabulary of the divine, because that's the only language that I can use to explain it. It was a God thing. And it was happened to me when for many of that, much of that time, I was rebelling against God. Knew God, rebelled against God, because I was mad at God.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Were you raised in the church?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

I was raised in the church. And uh I actually went to college, University of Georgia, then went to seminary. And from seminary, I pastored for 10 years. I was the funny preacher. I was a terrible pastor. I was a great preacher, terrible pastor. Uh, because I'm a bottom line kind of person. You got a problem, let's fix it. Most people don't want their problems fixed, they want their problems understood. Because if you take their problems away, they don't know who they are anymore. So most people just want you to pat their bobo and they come back in and we'll ask you how it feels again next week. I'm not that guy.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

So I was the funny preacher, you know. And I could always a storyteller, and I just kind of got hurt in the church. I was in some bad situations. And I said, if this is all there is to the church, I'm done with that. I'll go out and make a living just being myself. My wife at the time. I remember I was sitting, I was at the gym. I was not in the gym, I was at the gym. There's a huge difference. I was in the parking lot and I called my wife at the time, and um uh she she grew she grew to not want this life uh back then. Uh but I called her on the phone and I said, I'm gonna go make a living just being myself. And she said, What's the street value on your personality? I said, We're about to find out. Fortunately, it's been okay. But that that was a long decade of a lot of a lot of beating my head against the wall, a lot of opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Which is a good um uh um fodder for humor. Yeah. Once you get out the other end of all the pain in the chest, you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

When you realize you survived it, you can tell people how stupid you are. I I often have said I don't like everybody's offended these days, right? You can't tell a joke. There's they're so thin skinned. So I just preface a lot of things with I don't care if you're gay, straight, black, white, male, female, fat, skinny identify as he, him, she, her, they, them, or zem, I'm gonna make fun of you. But I'm gonna make fun of myself 85% of the time, because I'm the stupid one in the room. So if I gotta make fun of me, I'm gonna make fun of you too. So let's just get along with that. Uh sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. But uh you when you go through that junk that you ultimately realize that the biggest enemy to you is you alcohol, drugs, anywhere you could try to find reality, whether it's in the bottom of a bag of drugs or or a a a bottle. I remember Reno Callier saying to me, we were out doing some shows together years ago, and and I just, you know, Reno was a drunk. Like Reno would tell you. Reno we had Reno on the show. I mean, Reno will tell you, Reno wasn't alcoholic, Reno's a drunk. And and you know, Reno used to tell me slipped in Reno and went, wow, wow. This is the guy Reno used to tell me.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Those are the guys that kept me drinking five more years. I'd get to the meetings and go, wow, I got I got I'm not bad at these guys.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

I still have some of the funniest lines that stick in my head. One was from Reno. He said, The doctor told me if you don't quit drinking, you're gonna be dead in five years. He said, Can I quit in four? He said, I would be on the tour bus with blue collar when he was opening for those guys. He said, I would, I was 7 a.m., I'd take a bottle of Jack Daniels, take the cap off a brand new bottle, fling it across the bus and start drinking. And you know, Reno since lost like 150, 200 pounds. I mean, he was a, you know, he was death walking. And I remember back then we were on the road somewhere in America, and there was a guy driving, and and I was in the passenger seat, and Reno was in the back, and I just I didn't care. Like I just took a line of cocaine on my hand, ripped it off. I didn't care who was watching. And Reno goes, Chad, we really need to talk. We really need to talk. And and there were people in my life who were there, and I just said, I I'm not listening to anything right now. I don't, I don't, I've I haven't found reality there. I'm I'm looking for reality here, and I just knew it was all futile at that point. So here was a guy who came from where he did, went down into the bowels. I'd gone through a divorce, it was nasty, cost me a lot of money, um, all of this exterior success, internally, I'm in turmoil, I'm depressed, I'm medicated, I'm self-medicating, I'm drinking. Uh it was basically I did not have the boldness, the courage to kill myself, so I was going to do it that way.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It was it was basically a slow suicide. And no one in your life um to slap you around and tell you because when you're a god of your own life, right. There's nobody above you.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Well, I was angry at anybody in the church. Right. Anyone who had been a mentor or a quote, spiritual father to me, I was angry with them. And it wasn't their fault. It was my fault.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

I learned in therapy when I first got into recovery that we tend to search outside of ourselves to validate our insights. So when you're angry, bitter, jaded, cynical, and foul mouth, and people look at you and go, What are you so angry, bitter, and jaded about? You got a beautiful life, you know, you got all this success and stuff, which wasn't my case, but I had I had a beautiful wife, I had healthy children. I mean, I mean, you check the boxes in a job you love, which is why I got into politics in the 90s, because I was so freaking miserable. It's so easy to just point your finger at whatever particular group you want to point your finger at. It's because of them, is why I'm so miserable. So you at that point, you weren't a political animal. You were just partying and but you said you were angry with the church.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

I I kind of cut my teeth at that point in time. You know, I when things kind of took off for me, I had made this commitment. I said, I'm not gonna do political comedy, I'm not gonna do political humor. It's suicide. That last that that pact with myself also. Yeah. But that pack with myself.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Stories about my wife have lasted thirty years.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

And stories about getting older, stories about getting uh any medical procedure becomes a bit to those. But I back then I said in I guess it was 2015 I did a video where I said trying to pick which candidate to vote for between because at the time it was the primaries, that was ultimately became Clinton versus Trump. And I said trying to pick which which candidate to vote for is like trying to figure out which venereal disease you're most okay living with for the next four to eight years. There's no good deals here.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Either way, there's gonna be a that was always my line. Give me another choice. You don't like my choice, give me another one because you know there's only two.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

That's it. And and I went into the voting booth that year, and I there was Hillary Clinton and not Hillary Clinton, and I voted not Hillary Clinton. And so for me, it the die was sort of cashed. People started looking to me for political humor, and and and I delved into that a little bit, and I I I just kind of jumped in on it.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

So at this point, when did you start podcasting?

SPEAKER_03 23:00

So I started podcasting in 2014.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

14. So a year before this. And you said it was off air we were talking, so it was uh it was audio when you were doing this.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Back then, nothing was video. Podcasting was was all audio.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

It's so interesting because that's like twelve years ago, and it seems like podcasts have always been with us.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

It used to be how many on your quote RSS feed, that's where people listen to podcasts. Right. Apple, iHeart, Spotify, wherever it may be, and you listened to a podcast. Right. That's not true anymore. Everything now it's a studio.

unknown 23:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

You gotta have a camera, you gotta have the lights, you gotta have the whole thing, you got a whole production crew. I used to sit, I can remember being with guys like Gary Chapman over here in Nashville in the Renaissance downtown, and we had microphones set up on an ironing board in the hotel room. And I said, Nobody's gonna see it. We're just talking, we're recording. And so uh we would do that, and then and then I can remember Blaze, which was Glenn Beck, the Blaze Network came along and said, We want to carry your show. And I go, eh. I'm not really making any money. I was with Podcast One out of California. I said, I'm not really making any money. Well, I don't want to come over to the Blaze. And they were like, Well, we're gonna start you off at 150 a year, guaranteed money. I was like, hey, wait a minute, what? What guaranteed money?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

I just got to talk.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

For talking? I mean, I can make a living run in my mouth. And they were like, Yeah, like, haven't you been doing this? And I was like, not with those numbers. And at that time, I was in a top 20 my podcast, the Chad Prather show, was in a top 20 ranking, like across all categories. Oh, wow. But it so, I mean, it wasn't doing anything. I guess the product production company was the only one making any money off of it. I didn't see much. So the Blaze came along and sort of showed me what podcasting is now, they showed me what that looked like back in, I guess, 2017.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

And this studio, you know, the the because we were in the old Paramount Studios. Glenn had bought that. That's where they filmed Robocop, all the Barney's Dynasty.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Chuh Chuck Norris.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Uh Walker Texas Ranger was finished, was filmed there. So this historic Paramount.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Especially when I got involved with Glenn was uh during the um we did those three big events um Ryan and the Moon when he did the uh uh uh Love something down here.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Yeah, and so you would do you would do those like it all those sets are still in the back of that. Right. The moon is up there. People would walk through there. You know, Glenn has got everything. He's got Forrest Gump's bench where he's sitting like, oh, you're comfortable shoes. You know? Yeah. He's got George Washington's hair in there. He's got he's got Abraham Lincoln's the lapel of his coat with his blood.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Washington's teeth. He's got all of it.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

He's got his compass, his surveyors. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And the guy that whittled him, did he put his name in there somewhere?

SPEAKER_03 25:53

He's got little initials. Yeah. He has more Abraham Lincoln artifacts next to the Smithsonian. As a private citizen, he owns more than anybody in the world.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, I met uh Barton, uh David Barton. David Barton has uh, I think one of the had one of the largest uh collections of original writings buried somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Texas.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

If you go over there, yeah, he's over in um in um Weatherford, Texas, uh west of Fort Worth, and if you go in there, uh Glenn owns the original manuscript of the Declaration of Independence, the one that they lifted the ink off of. So you look at that, and it's there in the museum, uh, and in the margins, you'd see something cross through, and then whoever crossed through it and made the edit would sign their name. So, like there's Benjamin Franklin who made an edit. Let's go with this, or you know, you'd pick your founding father. He's got that. Like, who gets that? Right. Glenn Beck gets that. Yeah. So Glenn's a weird dude. He didn't live on the same planet we do.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

No, not at all. Not at all. But he's one of the nicest humans. He's very gracious. Which it was so cool because I listened to him when he started in Nashville and Bobo, the dog. I don't know if you remember Bobo, where he said he's gonna kill this puppy if his book isn't made number one on Amazon. And every day you'd hear the puppy go, he goes, I'm gonna have to kill Bobo. We're at number three, we're not at number one. He's never kept wondering, and I kept wondering what the payoff was gonna be. That's what intrigued me. I knew he wasn't gonna kill the dog. So, okay, where's where does the joke come in? And it really wasn't a joke, it was Terry Schiavo. If you remember, Terry Schaivo was um uh in a in a uh vegetative state, and her parents wanted to keep her on the respirator alive, and her husband was trying to get the plug pulled. And anyway, he played all of the hate mail that came in for the dog, and not one of them complained about Terry Shivo. And I said, All right, I like this guy. And then when I got a chance to meet him, yeah, uh, I was it was so funny. I went down there. Um, I knew Barton, uh, I had worked with David uh and his family on a cruise. I was the only uh I was by myself, so I had no family, and they adopted me for the week. So uh anyway, um, I had uh David had said, um, why don't you come down? And um there was something that that Glenn was doing. And uh anyway, Glenn was walking by me and he had the cane. And all I said, I never met the guy. I just go, Are you still milking that limp? And he stopped dead in my trade tracks. He goes, and who might you be? And I said, I'm a friend of David's and um Jeff Allen. And he goes, Oh my gosh, you're the guy my daughter likes. She thinks you're very funny. Anyway, uh he said we uh he told his assistant, get his name and number. I got the fly down. And again, you they say never meet your hero, you know, and I was worried. Gosh, just sit in the audience. I mean, gracious, you know. Very gracious eye contact, and uh just uh conversation was great, and you know, and uh we tried to worry. I just don't do politics. Yeah, and I wouldn't do it. I don't want to do politics. I wouldn't do it. I I just I'm pretty much done with it. Well it's almost like you you um it isn't so much now common sense is controversial.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

That's what gets me. I mean, and unless you're wired to just argue with people.

unknown 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

And when Twitter started, I was good for two volleys. That's a cesspool. And that's that's it. I would go two times and then just go have a nice life.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

And I had no desire. You can't win. I wrote a book. Well, if winning is changing hearts and minds, yeah, then you can't.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Yeah, you you you can't win there. That's not they call it the public forum. That's not the place for debate. It just can't, you can't win.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

That's one of the things I want to talk to you about, too. Is I was thinking the other day, um, I was watching the um uh Netflix uh roast of of Kevin Hart. And what'd you think? You know, it's it's a roast. So it's foul and it's filthy, and it's some of it. I mean, Cheryl Underwood crushed me.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

I mean, you know, but again, it's gross and cra crass, and but that's the nature of the beast. I mean, you know that going in.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

I would never recommend any of my fans to know what you're going into, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

But there were things said, and I said to Tammy, I paused it at one point, and uh I'll say her name, Chelsea Handler. Sure. Calling uh Tony Hincliffe a weight racist, Sean Gillis a racist, all this stuff. And I said to Tammy, you know, if they if Elon Musk could figure out through AI how to eliminate the ad hominem attack, it would cut Twitter or X by two-thirds. It would. Because that passes for debate now. I can't remember. If you can call somebody a name. Well, that's it. If I can call you whatever I want to, I can dismiss you as an ignorant all day. Why would I have a conversation with an ignoramus? But um I to be we talked about this during uh you know, I I used to do outreach at churches. And I talked about it. I said, you know, they asked, why don't you do altar calls? And I said, because it takes more than an emotional response to understand what you're getting into. You need a relationship with someone. Now there are people I know that have might uh that have been saved in a in an event and it and it took and they they're they lived their life for Jesus the rest of their life. I don't know many like that. I know people who gave their life uh you know and dismissed it two weeks later because the emotion was gone and all of that. So anyway, I again I'm not gonna start a controversy here, but I the guy that discipled me, it was a year and a half. This man loved me for a year and a half when I was on love. I mean, I didn't think I was lovable. You know, and I kept asking, why are you doing this? I mean, he had everything that I thought I desired. I mean, he was calm, collective. He treated his wife with respect, and he had money, and you know, and uh he said that um I just I I like you, and it would break me. I mean, it would honestly break me that somebody would actually like me. So you're gonna get on Twitter and at that time 40 characters and and try to draw somebody into a loving relationship because why else would I do it as a as a Bible-believing Christian? My whole point is to draw people into that relationship with Jesus, that have him use me as that as that instrument, and at 40 characters in between all the FUs and kiss my asses. Yeah, it's impossible. I used to love it when they call me douchebag, and I'd go, well, yeah, that'll win me over.

unknown 32:47

You know.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

You know, and again, I was good for two. I was good for two. You know, as soon as it got to the ad hominem, that's when I would bail. I just I there's no point in it.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Well, and you have to understand the nature of what you're up against. There's people out there with phone banks with a hundred bot phones, and they're just responding. You you're probably explaining that to me. There's a good chance you're not even talking to a real person.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Well, that's when I I heard about bots recently, and I go, Oh, I didn't realize that. There are people who claim to have millions of followers and they're bots because they go to these people who have bot farms and they say, We'll, we'll, we'll up your profile. Right. So you're seeing the bigger thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

They're tracking you. They can have a hundred different accounts tracking you. None of them are real accounts. And you say something that triggers their thing, and they all come after you. They swarm you. And now you're getting blown up by the hate, and you think your life's over because these people, I don't want this many people to dislike me, but you're not even dealing with people. Really? I mean, I got enough real people that dislike me. So like I don't I don't need the machines, right? You know, I don't need iRobot coming after me, too. But you have to put that in perspective. Tommy Lauren told me a long time ago, she said, oh Chad. Because I said, you know, I read a comment, she goes, Oh, Chad, you read you read the comments? And I was like, I can't stay away from them. I have Carolyn, she reads them and gets angry for me. So I'll tell you something funny. I'm so like many, many times, even recently, sometimes I think, is there anything redemptive about X that I what what about it in my life is bringing any redemptive quality to me? And I've thought many times about just deleting the whole thing. And I'm like, well, I'll keep it. I've got six hundred thousand, which is small by a lot of standards, but it's big by others. And I said, you know, there's six hundred thousand followers, whether they're real or not, whatever it is. I didn't ever pay to get followers. I wouldn't know where to start to do that. But uh thirty days before the last election, so what are we coming up on a year and a half? Thirty days uh before the last election, I felt impressed to start posting a prayer every morning, specifically praying for the upcoming election before Trump, uh in in 24. And so I I began to pray. And then the election came and went, and I continued to post prayers. I'd post it on my Facebook pages, I'd put it wherever we could put it, and and I just didn't want to put it on X. And I go, because I know what's gonna come. It's gonna be so much hate, and I really want this to be a redemptive thing. And finally, I felt like the Lord said to me, What's the point if you're not gonna put it there? Like that's where the law starts. Like that's where the hate is, that's where the evil is lurking. If you're not gonna penetrate the darkness with the light, what's the point? And I said, Okay. So I started putting it there. The most positive returns and fruit have come of a putting it there. It's amazing. Praise God. It's amazing. You'll have people. I look every day, I'll post it, and there'll be 1,200 to 1,700 reactions to that prayer. I'm still doing them. Did one this morning. So here we are, a year and a half later. Put a prayer, write the prayer in the morning. You know how much work it is to do that? Like you got to pray about what to pray, and then you gotta pray it, and then you gotta post it, you gotta write it, you gotta post it, and then you gotta pray it with everybody, and then everybody's gonna talk about your prayer again.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

We're praying. And Jesus is on the cross going, oh, poor you.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Poor pitiful. Do I really have to carry this? It's an X account, Jesus. It's like a buddy of mine, Spencer James, who's a funny comedian. He said, he was opening for me one time. He said, I kind of think not why this comes up, but he's like, it's people that talk about cyberbullying. He said, Cyberbullying, all you got to do is go click.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Well, I had a woman. She said uh you could leave the religious stuff for another channel or something. And I wrote her back and it's a flip of the thumb.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Just keep on rolling. Just scroll past it. Watch what you want to watch. Yeah, exactly. But I've seen more fruit come out of that and and more positive positive things that have happened that I think truly have been expansive to the kingdom. And that's been a reward for me. And now some days I've got a I've got a couple of young kids that are 24, 25 year olds that work for me, that they'll they'll kind of keep the algorithm refreshed every now and then with something that's going on. We might make a post about it. But I try not to look at it. Like, I mean, I'm at a point now, Jeff, where I like the Chad Prater show, which we started 12, 13 years ago. Like I told my producers this week, as a matter of fact, I said, that's going away. We're going to change that because I don't want to talk politics, I don't want to talk about the headlines anymore. I started doing these short form podcasts that are about 15 minutes long called Nois Bricks, and it's a takeoff from our before the noise morning book.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

So I want to talk to you about that. Uh that's I've been familiar with that and I loved it. But that you take that like at three in the morning or five minutes. It's early. Yeah, it's early. So But before the noise. I love the title, the title of it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

And the Lord gave me that. I know that's an overused kind of statement, but it really was, and I never questioned it, and it's worked. And I a couple of years ago, in the midst of all of my I was I'd gone through a lot of hurt, man, and and just most of it self-induced. I'd gone through a lot of pain, and I was carrying it physically. Uh claustrophobia. I mean, I was, you know, just it couldn't sleep at night. Just my dog would walk around going, this guy's about to shoot himself. And, you know, my dog was looking at me worried. And it was one of those kind of deals. They do have a They know. They know. And I and I'm at home alone, which I lived alone, and so I'm in this big house all by myself, and I'm just kind of echoing through the rooms and middle of the night. And I'm like, God, you know, this is I can't live like this. And I I had suicidal thoughts. I mean, I don't make light of that. I really did have it's like because if this is all there is, because to your point a minute ago, you look at your life and you're like, I got money. People love me. People want to be in my presence. Like I have people who care about me, and I'm like, I've got kids that are amazing. Uh I don't know where my kids came from. They're ridiculously smart. They didn't I don't know where they came from. But still you got that voice, that lie whispering in your head saying Well, the people think that it's the circumstances that drive people to suicide.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

It's not. It's isolationism and hopelessness. Yeah. And now that could be the symptom could be the circumstances, but your circumstances are constantly in flux in life. And you can't be attached to your circumstances. So if you get isolated and you allow that voice inside of you to take control, um, I can see it. I'm believe me, I've talked to enough people over the years through through the 12th century.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

It's a the brain's a wild thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

And that hopelessness is what you see in the younger people. I I can feel it at the airport. And I'm sure you've done this where you sat at the airport and you see these young men or women just sitting in their chairs with their phones and just looking at them. I mean, the uh there's nothing in the eyes. Uh their parents, you could see them speak to them, and there's just there's nothing. I mean, and you want to walk over and just give them a hug. I see it all the time. I see it every time.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

I'm in the airport every week, and I see these people, and it's funny you bring that up because I start praying for them immediately because I can, it's like the Lord points people out, and I'll talk to them if I can. Um but I see them. It happened to me this past week in Vegas. You can see a lot in Vegas, uh, just the emptiness. But on the circumstance thing, I I've often said if your happenings happen to happen happily, you'll be happy. But if your happenings happen to happen unhappily, you'll be unhappy.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

So you can't be basing it on basing life on your happenings because my happenings looked great. A lot of people would trade with me. Right. But I was miserable. Absolutely. And I was watching a Houston Astros game sitting in the living room. Well, that'd make you miserable. I'm telling you, I was adding depression upon depression. And I the only way I know to describe it is the Lord walked through the room, and I stood up with that claustrophobic feeling, like I was suffocating, and all at once it just I broke, and I wept and I turned into a, I call it my bubbling pile of goo. And I just fell on the floor. And it was so much regret that welled up in me, so many things that I had done that I could never take back. And the hurt started coming and the repentance started coming. And I said, God, what do you want? What do you want? I was physically saying this, and I felt like the Lord said to me, son, I made a lot of investments in you as a young man, and now I'm about to make some withdrawals. And at 50, Wow. At 51, I'm 53 now. At 51, I said, you know, this is wildly inconvenient timing. And so the Lord and I kind of had a conversation through my snot bubbles that I was blowing, and I said, Lord, you know, does this mean I can't go out and be funny anymore? And he said, son, let me be honest with you. You never really were that funny.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

I knew the Lord was a Texan.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Son. Son, you know, it's funny how God uses your vernacular to get your attention, right? Exactly. So, so I started on this journey of saying, okay, God, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll give it all up. I don't care. I'll just do whatever you want me to do. And I was in a hotel room and uh somewhere in America and woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I felt just this impression that it said, your morning Bible readings, I want you to go live on all your platforms. That represents, I don't know, four million people, I guess, between the YouTube and Rumble and Facebook. I've got four different Facebook pages. Uh X. I want you to go live on all of those, and I want you to share your whatever thoughts you're having when you read the scripture in the morning. Okay. So I said, Well, I'll plan that out. I've got a studio in the house. I said, I'll just I'll start next week. I got home Sunday, you know, you're due the weekend, you're home on Sunday. I woke up at three o'clock in the morning, Monday, that Monday morning, and again, everything happens at three o'clock in the morning. I said, No, we're starting today. I didn't have a week to prepare for it. Starting today. And so I went live, I grabbed the book of John, and I said, Well, what am I gonna do? I'm just gonna work through the Bible expositorily, verse by verse. Book of John. And I'm weeping. You go back and watch those old episodes, I'm weeping. I mean, the whole time I'm just crying. I'm like, you're cowboy hat and crying. I'm like, let's go. And so I'm working through John, and I'm just like 10 minutes long. The next day, 10 minutes long. Next day is 10 minutes long. And so this goes on for a couple of months. And by the way, another I said, what am I gonna call it? Like off the top of my head, before the noise. It's that early in the morning, yeah. Before the noise. So I was doing it at like eight central at that point, which is reasonable. Right. And then Rumble, which is the Canadian version of YouTube, which is kind of a free speech advocate. A lot of people don't realize they're Canadian, but they are.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Which is iron I own stock in Rumble. It really is ironic. I I I saw the CEO and he was impressive. Yeah. And then when they started building their own server farms. Yeah. Uh to get a lot of people. And you know what's funny? Um Amazon.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

They're great guys. They really don't know much about American politics, but they're great guys. I didn't know they were Canadian.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

That's so funny because to be a free speech platform out of Toronto coming out of Toronto.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

So they they call me up and they said, Hey, we like what you're doing. And I said, Thanks, you know, appreciate that. They said, Could you do it for an hour every morning? I go, an hour. Yeah, I probably can, but why? And they said, because we want to feature you on the home page every morning of Rumble. So when you go to Rumble.com, the first thing you see is going to be that before the noise program playing live. They said, but we need you to do it earlier in the morning. So uh I was I was doing seven central and because I'm still in Texas at the time. And well, Texas and Tennessee, but most of the time I was in Texas at that time. And then then Bongino came back to rumble, started his show again. They moved me to six o'clock central. So we're seven o'clock Eastern. And it got earlier and earlier. I got people that get up in California, they're watching at four o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Yeah, it was one of the episodes I watched recently was um uh people commenting from LA at three o'clock in the morning. They get up, they set their alarms, they do it.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

But I said most It's a great way to start the day. It really is. I said for an hour, I said, you know, most pastors they work to prepare a sermon a week, maybe. You know, the old I grew up in the Southern Baptist where where you got you got Sunday morning, you got Sunday night, you got Wednesday night. That preacher was working.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

And if he's gonna say anything.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

That's before the internet.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

That's before they could look stuff up. They had before AI and chat.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have a pastor. We do a bu uh we do a small group at our house last night, and you can always tell what the AI questions are.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

You sure can.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Yeah, they're just to anything.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

I always say, you know, you gotta you gotta give it to the apostles. They turned the world upside down without television, telephones, or telephons. They had teleperson. Like back in the day, you just had teleperson. That's how you grew things.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Well, and you saw life well lived. You know, and that's again, I go back to the man that discipled me. He got involved in my messy life, and I saw a life well lived. I saw it. And it there I call it a sweet aroma. It's uh, you know, when it comes off when a man is living a um a godly life and a um a strong male, there's there's uh an aroma to that that is attractive to another man. And it and again, you know, again, you go on X with that, they'll turn it sexual or whatever. It's not at all.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

It's just they don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

No, they don't at all. I mean, and without strong males to um to pour into young men. You know, it's interesting. I I was talking to a pastor recently, and the whole controversy, everything's a controversy, whether or not women should be pastors or not, or whatever. And all the pastor said to me was, I don't care. He said, I just don't want women telling boys how to be men. That's all. I want men raising men, you know, and um that makes perfect sense to me. And I that shouldn't be controversial.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Yeah, you know, Bob Terry, bossy wives, and women preachers, man. I tell you, it's the downfall of I called Beck.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

I I text Beck one day, or not I I emailed him once during something, and I said, I I forget what the amendment is that gave women the right to vote, but I said, that's what's destroyed everything. He immediately gets back to me, goes, Will you go on the air with that? I go, of course I will. I don't care. Suffrage, baby. So I get on there, and then after all of our conversation, I said, Should we tell everybody this has been a joke? I mean, he goes, You might want to mention it. Might want to put a disclaimer on there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

But we've got, you know, it it's a it's crazy. You're right about that aroma thing because I one of the deals is a lot of people in the period of time that I've experienced success with this now podcast, I don't even like calling it that. Because I still say these are my morning devotionals. You're sitting in with me. I'm not a preacher, I'm not your pastor. I just want you to I'm gonna tell you what I'm discovering in the scripture this morning. And five days a week we're doing that. And my a lot of people have come along and said, why don't you do this? Why don't you do this? I said, No, we're doing what we're doing. We're not changing the format, we're not interviewing people, we're not doing any of that.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Yeah, and it's interesting because the when the goal you know, I've always, you know, when I got here, I live in Nashville, I wanted to write a song. But you know my reason was I wanted mailbox money. Right. And oddly, in 30 years, God hasn't blessed that. Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

It's funny how that works.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

But it is so the minute you're doing devotionals, and all of a sudden the PR people come in and go, you know, we could grow this, right? And you can make some money off of this. Now the focus is completely off of the intent, which was to just this, I'm sharing you, this is what I go through in the morning. You know, I'm bringing you into my life. Yeah. That is that's sweet.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

It is. And that's where that's where for me the blessing, and it's done exactly what I thought it would do, the men have responded to it.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

The men Oh men are starving. Have responded to it. Especially young young men are starving to to when they see it, they'll know it because it's in us. God put it in men. When you see that, you would be a strange.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Well, and I'll add this in, and it's not cliche. This is so so true. Um the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, who was a friend on September 10th of last year, lit a fire under that, and people got even hungrier, particularly men, because they saw the emptiness. They saw they saw something. I was at Charlie's Memorial in Glendale when they had it, and I looked around that stadium and I I did not realize the amount of impact that my friend was making in the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

I didn't either.

SPEAKER_03 49:46

But I I looked at that and I go, 300 million, I mean, you you know, 100 million people are watching this, tuned into this. There's 300,000 people in this room. All the heads of state are there. Anybody that's anybody's in that room. And I'm looking at that and I go, I didn't know. And then I remember that, you know, I started thinking about the blood of martyrs and what it does. It really does fertilize that hunger. And the book of Revelation says that the reason that the apostles did what they did, and the reason they were so effective, is because they overcame by the word of their testimony the blood of the Lamb, and they love not their life even unto death. See, we're good with the first two the blood of the Lamb and the Word of the Testimony. We're not real good with not loving your life even unto death. Charlie was that way. He lived that way. He lived that risk, and I didn't even, as his friend, I still didn't realize until after the impact. But it created it exposed the void, and it was a spiritual void, particularly in men, and they they were starving for it. I'm seeing guys come to Christ or come back to Christ who you you just you go, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. Uh not the least of which is me. Jesus was my savior. He wasn't really operating in the in the Lord category of my life. And now I can't imagine anything different, of doing anything different. And so I'm seeing people who are who are turn turning everything around. Like I'm still feeling myself in the feeling my I I have felt myself in the darkness, but I'm feeling my way through the darkness, trying to figure it all out. You know, I'm going, I'm going to Little Rock to do a weekend of shows. This I used to walk a fine line of trying to do clean-ish comedy, edgy but clean-ish. And now I got people who are coming because they're brand new. They don't know who I am. They just know me from teaching the Bible in the morning. They don't know if they're coming to church. They don't know if they're coming to a motivational message. They don't know if they're coming to a comedy show. They don't have a clue what they're getting into.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

And I guarantee Those are my favorite audience members. Clueless.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Clueless. Clueless. Clueless. 80% of them will walk through and they'll want me to sign the book I put out last year, which is called Born for Meaning.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

And Oh my gosh, we didn't have a we don't have a couple of things.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

And I was I drove halfway here and going, I'm forgetting something. I'm forgetting something. You know, I know. I mean, I got to go. Some books that's eight bucks a copy times yeah. I had a brought them. I had a stack of them waiting to bring them. And it hit me. I go, I didn't bring any books. But that book, I put that out, that was a prophetic book. I didn't even know I was writing a prophetic book. I didn't know I was predicting the future. I was writing a book of all things about grief and tragedy and trauma and loss. And I was working through some things in my own life. I write this book. The same day that Charlie was killed, my niece died at 38 unexpectedly. Wow. I'd gotten the news just two hours before I got the news Charlie had been shot. Then my aunt dies a month later, then my mother dies a month after that. And then now I've had just in the last six weeks four close friends who have passed away unexpectedly. And I had no clue. And then James Robinson, who was a dear friend and mentor to me, just passed away a couple of days ago, got that news. That broke my heart. And and I was in Vegas when I got the news on that first thing in the morning. And my my wife said, You didn't cry like this when your own mother died. I said, Well, I was expecting her to die. Right. She was and and and so I said, But this James thing took me by surprise, and I think grief was just welling up. But the grief and the and the hurt that people are feeling, particularly in men, it made that Born for Meeting book uh a bestseller. The thing hit the list, and I was like, it's not even a funny book. I mean, it's got some humor in it, but I was writing on a very serious topic and had no idea that I was preparing myself for some things that were coming.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Right. And so you know Well it goes in on that. Um I think it was Socrates said an unexamined life is not worth living. And I think I wanted to title my book, An Examined Life, because uh to me the best written word is something that comes from inside out uh with God's grace behind it, right? Where He's revealing to you um and uh laying out pathways that you didn't even realize at the time that you're gonna need to heed your own words um because of the of the season you're going through. That's a lot of loss, man. That's a lot of loss.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

That's a lot, all encapsulated right there together. And you know, grace is an interesting thing. I I've always defined grace as being the power of God to do what he's called you to do. And we get off trying to do other things. And I am like a goose, man. I wake up in a new world every day. Like I can't stand doing the same thing over and over again. As I've gotten older, that's gotten a little bit easier. Um I think they call that hyperactivity. But I grew up in the woods. I grew up down in Georgia. We grew up so far down in the woods that I got a cousin that got arrested for selling chicken salad sandwiches at a cockfight because she didn't have a food permit. I mean, we were country, and uh I got story after story.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

But Tammy actually fed chicken salad to our to our chickens, and I thought that's how you get mad chicken disease, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:20

We could I can remember going uh like I would go on these when I was in my early 20s, well, through my twenties, I would I would take off. I was a baseball player with the University of Georgia, and then I would take off when I had some free time, I'd just go around the world. I'd go to Africa, I'd go to Central America, and I'd travel with these doctors. I met my the mother of my children, I met her in Nigeria, went all the way to West Africa to meet a white girl from Alabama, and needle in a haystack, Jeff. And so she stood out. Lucky me. Yeah, like the tooth, like a tooth in a meth head's mouth, she stood out. She was the only white thing there. And so we uh we uh we had four amazing kids. That was the only thing we did right, I think. But um I traveled around, I can remember pulling teeth in Honduras in this village, and you would take those teeth, I'd they didn't know. I'm just pulling teeth. I was with the doctors, they let me pull the teeth. So I'd yanking these teeth out of these people's mouths. Oh yeah. And then we'd throw the teeth down like.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

No in that particular country.

SPEAKER_03 56:20

No, I mean it's better than the joke. You know what they would do in those villages in Honduras is they would take a rock and put it against their mouth and hit it and knock everything out. So they they had so much problems with their mouths, they want they'd say Toto, Toto, Toto, they want all their teeth out. And so we were like, no. And so you we'd give them these people had never had anything like pain pills. So we'd give them a couple of ibuprofen. We'd deaden them. We're traveling with doctors, oral surgeons, and dentists. We would deaden them and then give them some ibuprofen and make sure that we were out of the village by the time the ibuprofen wore off. Like they're gonna kill us. Uh we'll be floating naked in the river. But I can remember pulling those teeth and throwing them on the ground, and the chickens in the village would come eat those teeth. And then that night we'd be eating rice and chicken. Like chewed gingerly. You might hit a tooth. Yeah. You know. So I don't know. Anyway, feeding chickens. But I I grew up in the country. I grew up in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

And so did you want to play uh baseball? Was that the plan? It was that was my I did not that was my plan. Um and then I discovered alcohol.

SPEAKER_03 57:23

So well, I wanted to play baseball. I burned out on baseball. I played too much of it. What position? I was a catcher. Oh, I was a catcher, yeah. I was a catcher, and I have ankle problems to this day because of it. But we played ball back when you played ball. I mean, now these kids it they never stop playing ball. They've got a tournament this week and that week. We had actual seasons. Right. But we played and then went to Georgia and then played above the collegiate level for two seasons and and uh burned out on it, and I was just done with it. And I said, I'm gonna move to a city somewhere where there's people. So I always thought of myself as an extrovert, again, just hyperactive. I'm gonna move where there's people. I'm gonna move to a city. Because I grew up in the woods, just me and the dogs and the trees and the horses, and I was just done. And so I did that. And that was part of me hiding in plain sight. Like I was again, I was just when I was kind of running from things and Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

I used to say I I I I would read the definitions of alcoholism, and one of them was drink alone. Well, I never drank alone.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

I was always in a crowd of course. You were with people. But I was always alone.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

We were with people.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

I would tell people.

SPEAKER_03 58:31

Someone said the other day about uh my wife made we made a big joke out of this. She likes to make something called detox soup. I have a pr very choice phrase that I call it about what you do in your pants when you eat that soup. But uh it's you know, poop your pants soup in all one word. And she makes this stuff, and and so anyway, she's like, she's like, you'd like it better if it had Jameson in it, wouldn't you? Like once upon a time, yes, I would have. I sure would have.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Uh remember Tammy looking at me once, going, You look like you want a drink. I said I'd suck it from your veins.

SPEAKER_03 59:08

That's like Glenn. I'm talking about Glenn Beck, going back to him, of course. Glenn's been sober, I guess, going on 30 years now. And Glenn was wild. And and I asked him one time, I said, Do you miss it? And he goes, Every second of every single day. He said, especially now with all the crap we put up with in the world.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Well, he I mean, I I I can't imagine, you know. Yeah. But I had dinner at his house one night, and I said, I only got one question for you. What was it like back in 08, I think it was, when you kicked when you got the show on Fox and you kicked over a rock and this stuff came out. And he was just throwing it out there like you think a journalist would do. This is what I've discovered. And the maelstrom that came down on top of him, and I re you realize that the um Sololinsky, who I never heard of until Glenn Beck, right? That whole method of circling the wagons and destroying the messenger really works. It does work. It really works to this day. I have friends in my life who I love dearly, but if I say something and they go, Where'd you hear that? I go, Well, Glenn Beck said it. Oh I have people who know and it's like, please, and I go, You're not even gonna bother to look and find out if that's true or not.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

I have people to this day who will say, Well, you know, uh, you must not dig into researching things that are hidden from us. I said, You mean you're telling me I'm not a conspiracy theorist? I spent six years on Glenn Beck's network, you're telling me I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I can remember years ago asking Glenn, going, Hey, I want to do better at that. Like I want to be better at this talk thing. And he goes, Oh, you gotta make them believe it. You gotta make them cry. You gotta, even if you don't believe it, you gotta weep. Like you just gotta get some tears going, you gotta get angry, you gotta cuss a little bit. He was like, let them know that conviction's coming through so strongly that you'll even violate your faith. Okay. Now, you know, and I that that's when I went through my people could tell when I went through my change there. I started screaming at the camera every day. I was frustrated. But no, I I was like, yeah, I I Glenn, Glenn will make you believe it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

Yeah. That's for sure. Oh, he's good at what he does. That's why the best. That's why he is why he's in the Radio Hall of Fame. That's why he is who he is. And uh I just um uh one of the things I wanted to ask you too was why we have a whole list of questions. If if we got to all these questions, we'd have to do that. That's a lot of questions. I'm still trying to figure out where you got that bio. That's pretty good. 17 hours, but I there was one of them I just saw. Um why do you think disagreement today is often treated like betrayal instead of just disagreement?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Yeah. Uh um, I have a theory on that as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:44

But Yeah, uh what the the reason I think that it is, is is people can't separate their ideas from their personality. So what they've done is is if I believe something, or if I have a thought and I put it out there, the only way that you and I can transfer thoughts to each other is through language. I have to get this idea in my brain into your brain, so I gotta say it. Well, if I say it and you disagree with it, you can't separate what I said from who I am as a person. That's what they've been that's what they've been led to believe. I I have to associate the opinion, good, bad, or ugly, with the person. And now that person, I can label them based on their opinion, I can categorize them, I can put them on the shelf, I don't have to deal with them. Dust your hands. Completely marginalized, walk away, and the only time I pull them off is to abuse them. Oh, you said you know, uh February was a year ago, February 27th. I was in the Oval Office with Trump. I was in in the White House, and that was the day uh then Attorney General Pam Bondy walks into the conference room and lays these Epstein binders on our lap. And we says, Don't look at them, but this is what's coming. These we got these notebooks. And then they trotted us out in front of the press pool, and we're all standing there holding these notebooks. People still to this day want to crucify us. I'm like, I'm a comedian. Why do we like what are you I just happened to be? I mean, I was there for a whole other reason. They just dumped these notebooks in our lap, and and we walk out and the press pool's taking pictures of us, and now next thing I know, my phone's blowing up, and everybody from CNN to Newsweek is plastering our pictures all over everything because ooh, the the White House gave us these secret binders with the Epstein files, didn't have anything in there. I was on national media multiple four times that same day saying there's nothing in here that we don't already have, right? But people, again, because of that, they can't separate who you are from what the narrative about you was. And so you'll forever be crucified for that. Doesn't matter how many times you explain yourself, because again, they've made their mind up. And and the the thing is that people they they find their meaning now in making sure they know who their villains are, who their enemies are. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

That's a good point. You don't find your identify the identity comes from by the people that you hate dislike. People you hate. Hate. Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:02

Yeah. And they that's why they dehumanize the people they don't like.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Well, it begins with you know, again, as believers, we believe in a magodo. We believe that everybody is made in the image of God. So if you begin uh any conversation from that starting point, you can separate the idea from the person.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

Because you're a child of God just as I'm a child of God. You have bad ideas. And again, I think it I don't know if it was Charlie Kirk or Jordan Peterson, somebody I heard say it, so I'll give credit to them, but I've incorporated that this whole entire civilization was built on a hierarchy of values. You don't get there without debate. And when you can silence debate between disagreements, you don't get to a hierarchy of values. You just get a lot of noise. And you get people like you and me who separate from the noise. I don't want to even get involved in it anymore because there's no point in it. What's the point? It's just they just turn up the volume. It just gets louder and louder. And now you tell me that all these robots out there, holy crazy You're not even fighting real people. I'm not even fighting real people who are not made in the image of God. Well who are not made in the image of God.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:08

They've been trained in the image of whoever created them to respond a certain way. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

But that's but yeah, without the Amalgadeo, um and again, you go back to um uh babies in the womb become cells uh you know, and still if you redefine the language instead of image bearers, right. You know.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:26

You redefine the language and and I've warned about this for a long, long time. There's a couple of major issues that I that I think that we're living with. Thirty years ago, when I did have opportunity to I've always even with the humor, I tried to make a point. And like one of them was we're I warned 30 years ago, I said we're heading into an age of something called postmodernism, which even postmodernism postmodernists can't define, but basically your meaning is is removed until you define it. So you define your own meaning. That's why we have people who don't know their pronouns or their genders, because rather than having an idea. Identity or a name that was given to you, like your father's name or your grandfather's name, or the history. You don't know your history. Now I make up my identity. It's not about a genealogy or a lineage. There's a reason why you get lost in the the so-and-so begat so-and-so in the Bible, and then the lineage of Jesus. Those lineages are important because you know where a person comes from. Now people are creating identities because you get to define your own reality. So I can come up with 37 different pronouns that I am, and I can be offended if you don't get all 37 of them right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

It's funny, we had a waiter the other night at uh with Tammy and I. And Tammy says, What's your name? And he said, Tinsley. And Tammy says, Did your parents give you that? He goes, Of course not. I mean, but it's not a birthday. Nobody's gonna name their kid Tinsley. You know, so so anyway, okay, fine. I mean, uh, you know, I use my middle name, Alan, you know. I mean, so it's it's I don't know. But I was saying, dude, I would say it used to be where your father would sit you down and go, Boy, you got my name. You behave yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:03

My friend Dudley Hall, uh my friend Dudley Hall gives a great illustration about when he'd go out with his buddies, you know, when they were young. And and uh he uh I talked with Dudley yesterday, as a matter of fact, and he said his father used to say to him, remember who you are. When you're going out with your buddies, just remember who you are. Well, that's it. And and and that identity determines So I tell people if you know where you came from, history, you know who you are, identity, you know where you're going, destiny, you know what you're leaving behind, legacy. We've lost all four of those ideas. We're living for the moment. And so we don't and so we're creating the identity because we don't know where we came from, and that's why we're lost. That's why if you teach a uh a little girl that she could take testosterone shots and become a little boy, she'll never make a wise decision ever in her life because she'll spend the rest of her life confused. It all starts with the identity thing. And so now if I can identify you as my enemy, we got a problem because now you've been not just marginalized, dehumanized. So you're a racist, you're a Nazi, you're a fascist, you're back to the ad hominem. The whole stuff. You're a pedophile. That's the that's the de jure now, is that's the name de jure nom de jour now, is you're a pedophile. Or you're a pedophile protector. And so like where you can't argue that. Because it because now if I argue that and say no, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:13

Well, the minute then you're on the defensive and you're like you're going, no, I'm not. And then it then it turns into a no-wing situation. Uh-uh, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:21

No, you are, but what am I? Yeah, right, exactly. So I I I just decided a while back I'm gonna engage in telling people about Christ. And I'm going to see what the image bearer. And I'm gonna say this is this is what we're about. Right. Because the politicians aren't gonna save you. Uh you can go through as many election cycles, as many outrage cycles as you want. It's done nothing redemptively for anybody, but it's caused more and more frustration. The sociological experiment we call social media, which is neither social nor media, has done nothing but divide more and more people. Then they did the great PSY-op in COVID and really divided people. Now you have families that are completely obliterated. Uh and and I mean, just the mental gymnastics you had to do to go through the stupidity of the COVID from the hazmat suits in the airport to the mask. You could walk into a restaurant with a mask on, lower your butt six inches into a seat, take the mask off, because apparently COVID doesn't live down there, which didn't make sense to me because Chinese people are right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Tammy crocheted me a mask so I can shove my almonds through it, you know, on the airplane. I have the best mask. So I didn't have to take my mask down and do that hypocrisy.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

I've got a mask out in the truck and I've kept it with me, and I want to I want it to be I want to be buried with it. Uh it's the best mask. I don't know. Some friend of mine gave it to me, I don't know where it came from. But if you hold it up to the light, you can read through it. It's like and I only had it for the airplanes because they had to travel. But it's I keep it with me because it's the funniest thing. It did nothing, which none of them did. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

Anything. Well, that was Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

And people still to this day wearing masks in their car by themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:56

Yeah, I've seen that. Uh I was out in California for America's Got Talent um 2021. I got canceled in 2020 because of because of the scourge. So I go back in 21, and Pasadena's a ghost town.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:11

And I'm two blocks from the studio, and I had to get a COVID test every time I left the studio. So I'm walking over there by myself, got a mask around my ear. I'm just waiting for the light to change. And some kid pulls up in a motorcycle wearing a mask on a motorcycle, no helmet, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

You know, and uh screaming, you're killing people. Apparently, I wiped out the whole city of Pasadena because nobody was out. But it but it's like, you know, again, if I had time to sit at a Starbucks and talk to this kid, maybe we could get to some common ground, maybe, but you're not gonna do it in 140 characters. Are you gonna deal with that kind of uh uh uh ignorance? I mean, I I don't even know if it's if it's willful ignorance that bothers. See, the the people who leave this country is it's willful. They did this, right? They knew better, right? They're smart enough to know better. The the people who got caught up into that vortex um again, if if your identity is in all the external and it's all of that, I can see latching onto that because it for once in your life I feel something. Whether it's anger, whether it's just vitrio, well, all of it, but at least I feel something.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

And I'm gonna let you know about it. And I'm gonna pick a team and I'm gonna go on that team, and I'm not gonna but the people that we've you know, this representative government that that's why I disengaged. And now we're watching old tonight show reruns at 10 o'clock, Tammy and I, what from 1973. I heard a Watergate joke last night.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

And got it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:53

And got it. I was I lived through it, so I was there. But you know, back in I longed for the days of Watergate. It was just a mild little break-in that they they they blew up to these proportions. Well, they at least it wasn't, you know. But I said to Tammy, when co when COVID, when it when you realize they're gonna spend a trillion and a half dollars on whatever, I said, why don't they just give us all hazmat suits?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:16

You know, and we can all just go out in public in a hazmat suit be cheaper.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:23

When you look back on all the stupid stuff that we put up with, though. It really exposed a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

But I think I think God will use it as a blessing.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:32

I think that when I was I was doing uh I I made a comment earlier to Carolyn uh about how the COVID s period of time for me was was a blessing and a curse. I got a lot of things done, a lot of successes came out of it, a lot of it ended a lot of things for me. I was at the time I was that I was going out to Hollywood, I was working with Eric Tannenbaum, who was executive producer for Two and a Half Men. He liked a project that I had written, wanted to do a sitcom. I was represented out there, and and we pitched to everybody that could be pitched to all the networks. We sat in there, and then they COVID hit. Well, first of all, they they didn't like me because they knew who I was and they knew w w the things that I stood for. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

By the way, when you were pitching, what was the age of the people you were pitching to for the most part?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:21

Uh they were young. Yeah. They were young. And I can remember Roseanne had just done her thing about Valerie Jarrett calling her Planet of the Apes, and then blamed it on Ambien. And I remember going in and sitting down in the conference room at at ABC and and the girl reaching across and she just kind of grabbed my hand and she goes, first question, have you ever taken Ambien? And I go, see, that's some BS right there, because you're immediately associating me with Roseanne.

unknown 1:13:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:46

Because you know I'm a conservative.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:47

Well, again, that's the easy way out. It's the easy way out. Because I don't have to get to know you then.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:51

Yeah. And and so they were immediately labeling me. I remember we went into um um uh Tom Werner's, you know, they had everything from soap to the Cosby show to and we caught him right after lunch. And he's don't never meet, never pitch a show after lunch because they're yawning at you, and and you he's got this giant Obama uh table book there. Probably purposely. I mean the guy had a big thing. Who are we meeting with, Chad Prather?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

Bring out the Obama book.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:24

They did. It's this thick. I'm like, this is a table, what do you call those things? The coffee table book? And so we go in there and they go, you know, Chad Prather. He goes, Oh, I know who Chad is. This guy had his own bedroom in the Clinton White House, you know. Oh, I know I know who Chad is. You know, it kind of sizes me up like this. So we go into the pitch and he's like it was like that. Well, then we get to CBS, where Tannebaum had just had 11 seasons of two and a half men, which was on Blockbuster. Right. And he's like, CBS will at least give us a script. He was ticked. He goes, he goes, my own network just rejected what I'm pitching. Right. Well, you you have you have bitten into the cursed apple, my friend. I'm the wrong vapor for out here.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:10

So well, it's interesting. When we were pitching in 2000, um we would leave these meetings and look at there were 25-year-olds, 26-year-olds. Yeah, they're right. And I said, Explain television.

unknown 1:15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

Because when I was 25 or 26, you put me in that position. It would be half naked women or fully naked if I could get away with it, and sophomoric dirty jokes. That's where I was at. But I got really blessed one day. One of the uh the older producers um uh I had met uh back in New York probably seven or eight years earlier. He took a pitch meeting with us, and um he says to me, Are you some kind of Christian or something now? And I said, Yeah, yeah, I am actually. And he goes, How does that happen? And I would you know, again, you're you're told when you go out there wear your faith close to your vest, don't share it. So anyway, I look at my management and they go, Go ahead, tell them. So I do my test, and it was relatively new at that point. So I tearing up and choking, I mean, to think of what God's grace has done for me and my marriage and my home and what I could have lost, all of that. And basically the show was part of that, you know. Yeah, and anyway, I look at him in this blank look, he goes, Hey, what's the pitch? You know, so we're leaving, and my manager goes, What was that? I go, that might save his life. Yeah, who knows? Ten years from now, he could be up in the hills with a gun in his mouth, and that story I just told him hits his head, you know, hits him and goes, Oh, yeah, I don't know, it's out of my hands.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:45

But what an opportunity to share the gospel amidst all of that. I mean, you know what it's like. You go in there and there's some kid walks in a room and goes, Who are all these people? What are you doing here? What are you doing here? And then you get to me and they go, You're the only one that should be here. And you think you rude little obnoxious twit. Yeah. And we would leave going, How did they get the gig?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:07

Well, they know somebody, whatever, but it explained television to me. Again, it was always like, What's your pitch? What's your and you know when I got the deal? Some guy came out, he was part of all in the family. He was an older guy, 52. And we get a call from him. He was at a showcase. I bombed at the showcase. Have you ever done one of those at the Melrose Improv? Melrose. You know, where you're like 20th out of 25 guys. Yeah. Just bomb miserably. And we get called out to LA for a meeting. And uh I said, I'm curious, why am I here? He goes, I was at the showcase uh a couple weeks ago, and I don't even remember if you were funny or not. I go, I wasn't. That's why I'm wondering why I am here. He said, All I remember is you smiled. And I remember leaning over to my assistant and going, I remember when comedians were relatively happy people. So anyway, I get a development deal based on that. Right. Just because I walked on stage and I was smiling. So there's no rhyme or reason to why anybody gets anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:07

No, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:07

And then we're in a meeting with HBO, having a great meeting, and then the head guy comes in and sits down. And the show is based on uh on a uh stand-up comic who becomes a pastor right up my alley. Uh not the pastor part, but I'm a comic who's a Christian. Anyway, that that's why the writer of the thing reached out to me. So we're having a great meeting, laughing, cutting up. And walks the head guy. He goes, What's the show about? And I said, stand-up comic becomes a pastor and let's get off the road. So he starts to pastor church. And this guy goes, Oh, yeah, we don't want to upset the church community. And I blurt out, you piss them off seven days a week. And that was the end of the meeting. Yeah. That was it. It was just like everybody went, you don't talk to him like that. I mean, but I come on, who we're adults here. Yeah. At least just go, I don't want to do it, especially if it shows the church in a good light. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:04

These people are funny though. The Hollywood crowd, like we were at lunch one day, and some executive was in there, and my manager at the time, he was like, That's so and so. He do him. And they brought his food to him. The waiter brings the food, and you heard him, he goes, What is this? What is this? And he takes the plate in the restaurant and throws it over his shoulder like that. I was like, These are the people we're supposed to be pitching a comedy show too. Right. I was like, This is not for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:30

Not at all, man. And the cool thing is, and uh there are so many different platforms now to get it out. Um you don't need uh either coast. You really don't.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:40

And well, you look at what's going on right here in Nashville. Everything's come to Nashville now.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:44

Yeah, Nate's uh uh production company, I think in the next decade they're gonna produce some really quality stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:50

Yeah, man. He's taking over the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

You know, Theo came here from he came from California, went to Austin, and I think a lot of those guys discovered Austin ain't it. I mean, if it's fine if you're in Joe Rogan's orbit, but Austin's a dump.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:04

Yeah, I'm going to Cap City.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:06

Uh that's a great club.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

Yeah. I think it's the second time in my career I was there a couple years, a few years ago, maybe a couple years ago. But um, my sister lives in Austin.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

That's if you're gonna do Austin, do Cap City because it's far enough out of town.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:20

It's just on the outskirts. You don't have to step over the dead bodies on Sixth Street to go to the mothership or whatever whatever else is down there. But Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:29

I sent Rogan my book. I I like literally a week later, we got a nice notebag said nothing in this for us. And I thought, at least they got back to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:38

That's true. Give them credit for that. That's true. You should have written about aliens. They're smoking weed or something. And Joe would have been all over it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:46

Like, yeah, I don't I don't again, I'm uh I'm I'm kind of out of all of the loop of of It's a good place to be though. Of the popular um things.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:55

I was never in it. I I flirted with it for a second and then COVID hit when that was starting to break for me. And I think I'm I I'm pretty thankful that it went the way that it went. Because it probably would have destroyed me. It would have it would have put the nail in the coffin.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

And I think God has other things for me besides all of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:16

Did you allow that to define you? I mean, was that the right? But looking at the numbers and the followers and the views and the I will say this. I'm glad that obviously you were reading comments, which told me finally.

unknown 1:21:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:33

Well, I'm glad that when those things took off for me, I was 40 and not 20. Because that would have killed me. So at least there was some of that perspective. Now I did enough damage over the course of the next decade that that that was bad enough. But again, I was coming at it, I still had a good heart, I thought, even though I was just it was a hurting heart that was looking for some relief. And the I tried to I can remember even when they were wanting me to move to California to to pitch and to push and all this kind of stuff and write. And I said, I'm not moving to California. I'm in Texas, I'm not, I'm not going to California. Not doing it, and thank God I did never did. Uh and even then I can remember saying to myself, I don't know that I want them to pick up a show that I've read.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:19

Well, that was funny because when we did our pilot uh when uh for PAX and Castle Rock produced it. Tammy and I had a long conversation. I said, you know, this is three weeks out there, six days a week, and our marriage was just getting back together. I will I I will say this, I wasn't brokenhearted when it didn't get picked off. Same. You know, uh I was okay. There was a part of me because we were so broke financially. It was like, you know, okay, if I do this for three years, we'll have the mailbox money, we can we can then make some different choices with with where we were going. But uh yeah, there was this part because we were solid here. And uh again, with the show we're doing now, we will film here because Nashville is becoming a place you can do it. You can. I mean, the production houses are here, the actors, the actors, all of them are here. Everything's here.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:12

I used to say to my manager out there, I had said, uh, you know, and he was old school, like he managed Prince and Madonna for a while. I mean, he had he had he had Paul Riser for 23 years. I mean, he was mad about you. That was their project. And and I'd say to him, I was like, is there a way to take Hollywood back? And he said, No. And I said, if you chip away, and he goes, No. But I always felt like there was a way. The deal is you don't have to go to Hollywood to do it. Like you can do it here. Right. Uh comedy, you know, coming to Texas, coming to other but Nashville is now again, Nashville's become Nashville's pretty gross too. Because you because the executives here, whether it's the music industry or whatever it may be, you've still got the LA and the New York guys that have come in here and that are running the show. But there's a way around it because you still have some of the old school values here to maybe get something done that's not just punk kids who are saying, you out of the room, you out of the room, you out of the room. Right. You know? And there's some there's some interesting production houses that are. Well, that's what I've said.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:13

So a lot of the production people have come from California. And um, you know, again, the pilot we just shot, I don't know what the percentage was. It was a number of people who had moved here from California.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:25

They were they were Well, COVID did that. Yeah. A lot of guys, you know, my friend Matt Marsden, you know, uh he was Blackhawk Down. He was in Transformers. He was in Matt came from Britain, went to Hollywood because you gotta go. He was a very popular British actor. He goes to Hollywood, gets a few parts, well then he wouldn't get vaccinated. And so they're like, Well, you're out, you're blackballed. So he comes to Texas. You know, if you're watching, I'm watching the first season of Reacher, you know, with the the new series of the real Reacher. The Real Reacher. Yeah, instead of Tom Cruise.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:56

Have you read those books? Oh god, yeah. I read one of them. And then I I can't wait to see the Reacher.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:00

Tom Cruise. Five foot eight and he's fighting five guys. Five foot eight. I met Tom Cruise. He's a super nice guy, but he's diminutive. Okay. Not Jack Reacher.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:13

But the first season about the way they describe him in the book.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:15

No, six foot five is a beast, scarred up and uh but the well, we're watching the first season of Reacher, and and then when they do the flashback when they're little boys and the dad comes out on the porch, that's my friend Matt Marston. And I call him on the phone. I was like, I didn't know you got that part. And he goes, Yeah, read for Reacher, but they didn't want me. And I was like, Well, you know, I guess they didn't. You didn't get vaccinated. But uh a lot of them came. They came to Texas. Uh they came, they came here.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:40

Actually, Reacher's uh in here beating up his neighbors, I think. Uh is any in Franklin.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:45

Franklin. Isn't that where that happened? Pounding on his neighbors. The guy on the motorbike? Or he was on the motorbike.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Yeah, he was on the motorbike.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:51

Beat up his neighbor.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:53

He came out and he said, I'm a person of values, I'm a Christian. But then he started in on the whole, if you've ever supported Trump or if you're a conservative, then you're this, that, and the other started the name calling. You know, you can't be a Christian if you're this and that. It's like again, you that's that's not critical thinking. Right. You're just making a tax because you now have some fame and some clout that you can say these things and people will gravitate.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:18

You know, anybody within your orbit without having to engage. You don't have to engage them. Once you create uh a name for somebody, um you don't have to hear their ideas. You don't have to hear them. You don't I mean, you're stupid. Why should I listen to you? Why should I, you know, don't waste pearls on swine, whatever. It's just as a lazy uh anti-intellectual way to engage. I mean, and again, if it matters to you, I don't think it matters.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:47

You know, I believe what I believe, I don't need to be changed. Right. I I f I follow atheists, I listen to atheist argument. I haven't heard anything new, but I listen to them, especially if they become popular and they have a foothold in the culture. Right. I want okay. I mean, and I always say that to atheists. What do you got for me? Because they'll mock, they'll mock the faith where Jesus, you know, turned water to wine or talking, all the miracles in the Bible. And I said, But do you understand what I believe? I'm talking about the creator of all of this. You think he can't move a few molecules around? Right. I mean, that's what I believe.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:26

So I understand in your limited view of the universe why that wouldn't make sense to you. But step in my shoes and try to imagine the creator of all. I mean, the I mean, look at the DNA, the human genome, all of this stuff that was created by the divine mind. And you think turning water to wine is the most amazing thing he's ever done. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:54

Look at rhinoceroses and gi and elephants and look at nature in general, even at the microscopic. Level, you you watch Discovery and God bless those people that sit in the bushes for hours to get eight seconds of a bug mating.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:09

So somebody can whisper a narration in British accent.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:13

Exactly. But but um but in a in a in the public arena, as soon as you know, I think it was Eugene Debs said, profanity gives people permission not to hear what you have to say. That's a good point. And I think the ad hominem attack gives, certainly in my world, as soon as you call me a name, I'm done. I'm not gonna say that I didn't want to hear it anymore. I mean, like, okay, is this where we're going?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:37

You go back to our earlier discussion where uh people who disagree and used to the country was built on the ability to dialogue, disagree, discuss, debate. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson hated each other's guts. Right. They hated each other's guts, but they could still come back together. They they, you know, Jefferson believed in a limited government, Adams believed in the government taking care of more things, the bigger government. And they they disagreed on that. And but yet they still were able to come back together for the betterment of the union and say this is this is what we can do. And eventually they could they could never see eye to eye, but they could still agree to disagree. But the agreement was there. Now we can't even agree to disagree. And I've often said, because I talk about the one of the biggest things we've lost, common sense is obvious, but one of the biggest things we've lost as a culture is critical thinking. Most people, if you ask the average person on the street, tell me what critical thinking is, they can't tell you what that is. My first rule of critical thinking is I have to ask myself, where am I wrong on this? Not what not why am I right. I'm not going to defend why I'm right. Where am I wrong on this? And I got to ask myself that question. Now, if I can prove myself wrong, I don't even addict, I don't need to take this idea to market. Most people that you're engaging with, they've never asked themselves, could they possibly be wrong? Right. They've never started from that. And therefore, we don't have the ability to debate because in their mind, they can't possibly be wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:01

Well, and it's interesting too because they dig your heels in because your self-esteem is connected to the um to the idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:07

Yeah. Which brings you back to the inability to separate identity from the opinion. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:12

And um I um I worry that I you know I again I got wrapped up in the 90s. Um, you know, I I lived that uh personally, and it just almost destroyed my life. Um and again, this is back when it was just CNN. I'm talking about headline news. There was no Fox, there was nothing. And I'd watch six, seven, eight hours of that, you know, in a hotel room all day on a loop, just watching it and getting stirred up about all these things that were going on, and you know, and and again, I I I I wrote about it in the book, but um As a kid in the 80s Saint from God came to me and said, How much news do you watch? And I go, I don't know, not much, six, seven, eight hours a day. It's designed to poison. That was like asking alcoholic, how much you drink? Yeah. That much. Yeah. Like when you're filling out the doctor's 20. How many drinks a week?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:03

73? A bottle. We're doing this in volume. Uh yeah, is that bad? Is that a bad thing? I can remember as a kid in the 80s when Ted Turner started CNN. I asked, I was I remember where I was actually when I asked this question. I said, What are they going to talk about for 24 hours a day? Because they're going to run out of news. They got to start making up stories.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:26

Well, not only that, listen to this. It's a 24-7 news cycle, 365, and the paradigm is if it bleeds, it leads. So what possibly human edifying thing could come out of that?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:41

So again, I I'm not completely uninformed, but believe me, you're talking limited doses today. I don't.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:49

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:49

I don't. I mean, again, it's a flip of the thumb.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:52

If I'm in a hotel room, and I don't judge anybody who does, but if I'm in a hotel room, I I never turn the TV on. It just doesn't come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:00

I don't either. I use my iPad if I want to watch it.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:03

I'm in a I'm in a hotel room weekly. I don't, I don't I don't even know where the remote control is. I don't turn it on. Uh if there's news, I get it from looking for the news. Uh I just my longtime road manager that traveled with me, Party Foul Steve. Give him a shout-out, Party Foul. Party, what? Party foul. Party foul. Party foul Steve. F-A-L. F F O U L. Like he was a party foul. Oh, party foul. Foul. Like he was gonna, if you were drinking, he was gonna spill something. It was gonna be bad. Something's gonna go. Uh he was a party foul. Party foul Steve. And uh he's traveled all over the world. You know, guys like that that would talk with their hands. It's like this guy. You never knew.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:46

The best description was I could always tell they had a drink in one hand and some somebody's lapel in the other. We were doing hanging on the talking room.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:54

We were doing but the foul drinking breath. We were doing shows. This is a perfect party foul story. We we were doing, but he listened, he's got it on. It's 24 hours a day. Like I we never stay in the same hotel room, but last year we were speaking in Downey, California. Vic, you were there, and we stayed in the same hotel room, and he got up at five o'clock in the morning, he had that stuff going. I was like, turn it off. I can't turn this crap off. It was Fox News. And it just going round and round. We were doing Bakersfield, California. This was 2021-ish, 2020, and my buddy Vince Moreno, who lives here in Nashville. You had the Roy Rogers? Yeah. This is this is back in the day. We're we're we're doing what is that, the Fox Theater there, and we go to a bar afterwards with some friends, and and Vince, who was opening for me, he gets into a fight. Some guy comes and comes after him, and party foul Steve goes over there, he's gonna get in the melee, and and he's throwing punches. And I'm trying to get them all out of there because I don't want to go to jail in Bakersfield or anywhere, but uh the whole time Steve's wailing on some guy, he's wailing on our own guy. He's beating, he's beating Vince. I was like, that's party foul. That's like he's breaking my guy's ribs. Just throwing punches. Former Marine. Uh but yeah. You're never a former Marine. Never a former Marine. Carolyn will tell you that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:12

Right? Yeah. Still eats crayon.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:14

Yeah. Still eats crayons. Still eats the crayon. Yeah, there's no former Marines. Steve, the party foul Steve would say there are. He's like, there's nothing left in me. Nothing left.

unknown 1:34:25

Unless Vince is in the ribs.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:27

I'm telling you, ask Vince's ribs. Uh but anyway. So uh yeah, we, you know, it it's it's we live in a crazy world. And the only thing that I can see is I I made a video yesterday because there's this huge movement now. There's a there's a lot of it's not a new movement, it's a it's a 2,000-year-old movement, thing called Gnosticism. And and there these people want to they've kind of bought into this that the New Testament is Romanized and all because of Constantine and and and Jesus wasn't really the Son of God, and he wasn't really God. He never claimed to be God. And so, you know, I made a video yesterday about that. The the times when I mean Jesus was always claiming to be God. That's why they literally hung him. Well, that was why they hung him. Um they didn't hang him for being nice. So, and he wasn't nice, uh, but they they you know, I the Lord spoke to me this morning as I was praying, he said, you're not gonna convince people of things that are revealed by the Spirit of God. You're not going to talk them into it. You're not gonna logically bring them to a deduction or conclusion. And I think that's where we are in so much of what's going on in culture, whether it's politics, because politics, as as uh Breitbart said, Andrew Breitbart said, call politics runs downstream of culture. But then culture runs downstream of religion. So if we're gonna change culture, we've got to get the religion part back right. Not religion, not the treadmill checking the boxes, I gotta do this and I gotta strive to be better. No, there is one who's better, he's the best, he's the perfect one, and I just want to be like him in intimate relationship with him. Well, when you're to the degree I do that, I start to change culture.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:10

When you get intimate with if that relationship is right, we were talking about this last night in a small group. Um you know, God, spouse, children, job, whatever. And and if you get that right, when you get your day started with acknowledging that that divine connection, then you have a chance. Then you have a chance. And that that spirit working through you will sanctify you over time. It's a progressive sanctification. You're not you're not sanctified the day you say yes to Jesus, and then you can go in on Sunday and do your thing and then live your life the next six days. It's a daily thing, and it's taken me years to realize that, which is what I love what you're doing with the daily devotions. It gives people like me who are lazy and forget that a place to go and at least be reminded that that relationship is key. Without it, I have no wife, I have no children, I have no job, I have I have nothing. I am nothing without that relationship. Now I tend to forget that, and again, I got it from here. But I love what you're doing with before the noise. Now, where can people find that?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:29

Um, you can go to beforethenoise.com. You can go to before the noise.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:34

Even I can find that. That's easy. That's how I found it. It's easy. BeforeThenoise.com. You know, how did you manage to get that?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:42

Dude, I was like, every time I went on a website, a God thing. I'm telling you, I it everything about that, waking me up at three o'clock in the morning with the idea, waking me up at three o'clock in the morning with the name, waking me up at three o'clock in the morning to say, and you're gonna start this today, all of it just came, and it was uh that's why I say any success that I describe, you've got to be comfortable with the vocabulary of the divine, because it's all a God thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:05

And so for me, uh before the noise.com, and I get people all the time who say, the name is perfect for that. And I go, I I'd love to take credit. I'm not that creative. I I think I'm somewhat, but I'm not it just came and then the dot com was available. And uh uh I mean, my website, if you want to find my comedy tour, uh the shows that I'm doing, you go to watchchad.com, which sounds like an OnlyFans. And sounds dirty. I'd be my OnlyFan. Are there male OnlyFans? You can get on there. I'm sure there's I'm sure there's male.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:40

I'm sure there's some dudes' feet pictures out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:43

Uh yeah. Uh but no, yeah. That's gross.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:48

That's funny. Dudes like dudes. Of course they're dudes on OnlyFans.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:51

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:52

They just might not have ladies watching them.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:54

Yeah, there's dudes. Well, apparently the algorithm is not sending me any of those.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:59

Yeah, don't talk about it too loud because they'll probably start listening. Your algorithm will just drop you off anywhere on Instagram. You'll start seeing uh bohunks.com. Oh that's not where I want to be. Um is that taken?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:13

I'm gonna secure that. Did Beck ever tell you the story on how he got his name back? Uh-uh. Oh my god, this is a great story. This is a great story. This is how smart. I don't think I've ever heard that story. This is how smart Glenn Beck is. Yeah. Now he told me this, and again, I'm probably paraphrasing because I heard it years ago. But he said he went to get his name to Glenn Beck.com. Right. It was owned by a porn guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:37

Which I can attest to because uh Jeff Allen.com was owned. It was a porn portal, actually, um, when I first went to it. I thought of all these Gaither people going to Jeff Allen.com. Oh, he had another life. But anyway, he goes to the guy and he said, Uh I think he offered him 50 grand for his name, for his name. This was before the law was passed or whatever. So the guy goes, No, he didn't like Glenn. He didn't like what he stood for, he didn't like anything. He goes, No. So Glenn goes to a porn guy in Thailand and he says, if you can get this name, you got 50 grand. Whatever you got it for like five grand. The guy made 45k. No kidding. Yeah, gave it to Glenn, sold it to Glenn. No kidding. Yeah. I mean, how sharp is that? That's an amazing story. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I would have never thought of it. I would have thought you jerk. I ended up using Jeff Allencomedy.com. But uh Jeff Allen.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:33

I was able to get chadpraether.com, but uh we started doing watch chad because well actually you got chadpra.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:39

It's just the short A.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:40

The short A.

unknown 1:40:42

We can't find Gohunk.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:44

Well, you already looked it up? It's already taken? Yeah, I'm sorry. I that's why I'm so amazed. Don't ever go see what's there. Before the noise. Yeah. But before the noise, that's why I'm shocked. It's like anything you can think of. Have you ever done that? Just gone on a Google search. So back in my back in my porn days, way back when I used to Google the most obnoxious, obscene thing, like with pygmies. Oh my God, a million pages. You're going, you think you're unique in your perversion, but you're not.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:12

Yeah. You're not unique at all. I've tried to do other variations because we do a thing called above the noise, which is a paywall thing where I'm like, okay, there's people out here who have been asking me, hey, we want to go deeper and learn how to study the scripture for ourselves. And so I said, okay, well, let's do above the noise, kind of a playoff of that where you go subscribe to it. You can't find above the noise.com, so we had to do a joinabovethnoise.com, which is again, it gets complicated with all that stuff. Right. It's hard to make it as a man today, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:41

It's hard to do it, hard to do it. Hard to do it. So uh Chad Praether.com for the uh for the tour dates.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:49

All the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:49

And you can find four the noise. How many dates you do for you?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:53

I can do as much as I want to do. The difference is uh back when we were touring hard, we were four cities a week. I won't do that anymore. I'll go, I'll go like this weekend. Oh, I would never do that. I ain't doing that again. I ain't doing that again. We we would do 250,000 miles a year in the air, and I just said, I'm not. I can't. You know, I used to have friends. Dudley Hall used to he said to me one time, I was in James Robinson's house. He said, he said, uh he said, Chad, you can't do this forever. And I go, why not? Sure I can.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:24

Right. Yeah. No, I can't. Well, I'm on my first final farewell too.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:28

So uh it's working for George Straight.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:31

I'm thinking about it. Well, that's what I thought. I thought it was Cher. It was so funny. I I just wrote a bit, it's not even a bit, I just popped in my head. When I got married, I told Tammy, I said, I'll forsake all others except Cher.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:42

She was hot.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:44

Now every now and then she'll walk by with a picture of her and go, Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:49

That's why she needed Sonny. That's why she needed Sonny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:53

Sonny could have talked her off after 12 facelifts. Just said, you're not getting another. He looks brutal. That's it. Yeah. Sonny looks better than she does.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:00

Yeah. Yeah. Sonny's looking way better than Chernobyl. And he and he hit a tree. I mean, uh, yeah. I mean, a head injury to the tree. Yeah. But no, I I can go out. I'll go do a weekend. Like I'll do tomorrow night, Friday night, Saturday night at this club, and then we'll go on. But see, we do music too. So I've got a band. I my shtick. Yeah, my shtick back in the day was I would I would the the thing was when it first got started, I was like, I don't know if I can do an hour or whatever I needed to do, but I can play a guitar and I can sing and I can write stupid songs. And so why tell a joke when you could sing one? So I would take the guitar on stage with me. Then COVID hit, and my musician friends who couldn't go to work, I told them, I said, well, just come on the road with me and we'll do some stuff. Because we can go to places like Wyoming where they've never heard of COVID. And and people would show up, and then it turned into a we'd sing harmony together, and that's turned into a thing. I should have called that band Chad Praether in the 1099s, because I can't get rid of those dudes at all. I mean, they're they're with me. Like they they don't have to book anything, they just show up for music gigs a couple of times a month. And you know, but we've done that's a fun deal. We've turned it into comedy slash real music and and have a lot of fun. So you you fly? Um Yeah, we did the tour bus thing for a while, uh, but mostly flying. I'm I'm yeah. I'm doing the rare thing of actually driving myself this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:27

Yeah. I like I said, five hours I'll drive myself. But uh years ago I opened for the Smothers Brothers in Kentucky somewhere, and Tommy and um was talking to Tommy Smothers backstage, and I said, I thought you guys retired. He goes, Yeah, we go out twice a year. We rent a bus for 30 days in Nashville, drive to a golf course, Tommy plays golf, and we go to the show, drive to another golf course, do a show, drive to a golf course. Do you play golf everywhere you go? I I can't that much anymore. It's like you're in, you're out. You know, when I was doing weekends, like full uh we had some time during the day. I had time, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:04

Yeah, because people did you ever get that question of people say uh there's two questions you get as a comedian. People people say, What do you do for a living? I've many times just want to just tell them I'm a plumber. Because nobody wants to ask questions about that. But if you say I'm I'm a comedian, you do the comedy? And then and then it's or or do you like manage it or and I'm like, no, no, I mean, everybody wants to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:27

Yeah, Tammy's uh her friends, my wife showed dogs for years. So my kids were raised with two parents that had odd jobs. Right. So um I never went to a dog show. I went to maybe two in 20 years, you know. So they plus her heart, she made up a husband. But they would and they would find out, um, you know, and say, can can he make money at that? Can you yeah you know, uh all of that. And now that the profile's increased and I'm in their feeds every day and everything, they have a better understanding of oh, maybe he does make money at this. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:04

I've gotten that, and then I've gotten the the if you tell anybody you podcast, they're like, Oh, that's nice. That's that's bless your heart. Can we help you in any way?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:13

Yeah, I my line is uh I do a podcast, but you have one too, right? Exactly. Everybody has a podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:19

Exactly. But I get that everybody asks you, what do you do? And you I don't want to lie to them, you tell them. And then and then, you know, because it because I've got all the I've got I'm a musician, I'm an author, I'm a comedian, I'm a podcaster. So basically I'm broke. I mean, on paper, I should be. And I'm fortunate enough I've made a living out of all of it, and I'm very blessed in regards to that. But then the other question is, i people say, What's your favorite city to go to? Like, there's not one. You know, you don't I mean, now if you're playing golf, that's what I was gonna ask you, because you might have a golf course you like to go to, but normally you're in and out, and you don't get enjoying a city.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:54

I try. I probably play more on the road than I do at home anymore. But um uh yeah, I'm going to Roswell, New Mexico uh a day early. I could play Saturday. But the golf course, actually, where I'm doing the corporate show at is at a golf course and they're having an outing.

unknown 1:47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:12

So I can't play. Uh I may bring some clubs and practice. I mean, I just coming back here to play in two weeks, I think. Where are you playing?

SPEAKER_03 1:47:18

Uh uh they told me and I don't remember, it's Josh Allen, the quarterback for the Bills, is having a charity thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:25

Everybody does their charity thing here in Nashville. Yeah, I'm doing one September 9th. I hope you'll come and play.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:30

I'd I'd love to. Yeah. I'd love to. I had arm surgery two months ago, and I really shouldn't be playing now, but I'm going to.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:36

Well, by September you'll be healthy. Yeah. I'll be healthy. And you got plenty of time to come up with an excuse to not play. Uh it's a Wednesday. I'll do it. Yeah. We'll do it. Well, I gotta tell you, man, I I could talk all day. I and uh I I have really enjoyed this. I've been looking forward to this. Thanks for having me. I'm even more impressed getting a chance to sit across from you. And and I was impressed prior to you getting here.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:02

Well, I've been a big fan of yours for a long time. And uh I shared uh not long ago the the testimony bit that kind of resurfaced again on all that deal. And it's fan, it's yeah, I was I was I was watching it one morning before I was going live on Before the Noise. Victoria had actually shared it, and I'm just sitting there weeping. I'm like, my eyes are gonna be so red through this whole deal. I think I even talked about it on the show that morning. I said, You guys, if you haven't watched it, go watch it. I mentioned you on the podcast yesterday. It's probably coming over.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:30

Uh uh Tammy pointed it out to me. She said, I know you don't pay attention to this stuff, but your faith posts out view your comedy post almost 10 to 1. People are starving for it. They're starving for something real and raw and honest. Honest. They're starving for truth.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:47

And um again, I I would like to say if you have not gone um uh to before the noise, um, it might be early, but you you archive them.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:57

And and you can watch it anytime you want. Right. There were podcasters are offered as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:01

And you can go back, starting at the book of John. Yeah. Um, and uh if uh if if you're one of those that wake up in the morning and you just can't figure out why you're here, what's the point to all of this? And you got all the boxes checked, every last one of them checked. I got the beautiful wife, I got the home, I got the kids, I got the thing, and you're sitting up at night scrolling through, looking at things you shouldn't be looking at because you're bored out of your mind. Uh there is an answer to that. And the one that uh created you, the one that uh put you in this position, and the one that's probably tugging at your heart right now uh wants to hear from you. And uh it's just a simple get on your knees. What did Jesus say? Knock and I'll answer. Uh and um he's the he's there, and you don't even have to buy a subscription.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:57

But you'll want to go deeper.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:58

You want to go deeper, you'll want to go deeper above the noise. Uh God bless you, mister. You too. Thank you for coming, man. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. And uh we'll see you guys out on the road. Thank you for watching. Uh and uh coming up, we got some really cool uh Toby Martin um uh and um Andy Bannister. Andy Bannister uh from the UK. We're gonna do a Zoom. We're gonna start doing a couple zooms uh to see how that works out. Uh please comment, uh subscribe, share, all of it. Uh we need you. You know, if you want to if this is what if you like this kind of content, let us know. And if you don't like it, let us know. Um, not that I read them, Carolyn reads them. And uh any replies you get that are snotty and nasty are probably from me. But if they're gentle and kind, they're probably from Carolyn. So God bless you guys, man, and we'll see you out on the road with the comite.