Pints With Aquinas - Comedy, Rehab, and Going on The Tonight Show (John Crist) | Ep. 547

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

In this episode, Matt interviews comedian and podcaster John Crist. The conversation focuses on comedy, what it was like getting on Jimmy Fallon, going to rehab, shame, speaking out in public when you see injustice, and what it means to be a man. 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors:  👉 College of St. Joseph the Worker:  https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/mattfradd 👉  Truthly – The Catholic faith at your fingertips: https://www.truthly.ai/ 👉 Hallow – The #1 Catholic prayer app: https://hallow.com/mattfradd  💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas 🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 PWA Merch – Wear the Faith! Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com

That's all comedy is. I love that. That's all it is, is he go, hey, do you notice this too? Government, culture, parenting, families, and you go, and they go, it's into my kitchen counter, middle of June, and I got an email that said, you're confirmed for the Tonight Show, June 16th. What was that like? Oh, my, I mean, I got, I got.

Because you've been doing this for years. It's funny. He said that music is the same. Every time you're, you are sad, you do go to art. you don't go to statistics you don't go to math you go to art like in rehab the place i went to at least i don't know about other rehabs there's no no escaping so like not from it's not a prison you can physically there's no drugs alcohol there's no televisions there's no dude listen to this there's no sugar there's no caffeine there's no fiction books there's no um if you get a runner's high from working out

They don't even let you do that. So no, when you feel an uncomfortable feeling, sadness, depression, not good enough. There's nowhere to go. Goody, everybody. Welcome to Pines with Aquinas. I just had a really beautiful conversation with John Christ. I've admired his comedy for a while. I've obviously been on his show.

Well, maybe obviously, but I've been on his show. And when he was coming on today, I didn't really know what to expect. If you watched my show with him, it was basically him and his friends telling jokes and me not really getting them. And I just kept being serious. So I thought, well, I hope we can kind of go deep here. And we really did. I mean, we started talking about comedy and there's so many great insights there. And then we went really deep.

And I thought it was beautiful. And I think it'll be a blessing to you. So I hope you enjoy it. Before you do anything else, would you do me a favor if you appreciate Pines with Aquinas? Just click subscribe. It's free. That's a great way to support the channel. Click thumbs up, leave a comment.

And if you think this is beneficial to people, you're going to have to watch it first, obviously. Here I am telling you to like it before you've watched it. Do that. But watch it. If you think it's beneficial, would you please share it with one person? I think it really will be a blessing to many folks.

Thanks. How old are you? Can I just turn 41? Yeah, I'm 42. Oh, yeah. And don't you, I remember when I turned 40, I was like, I just felt such freedom. Man, there's no new skills coming.

This is it. These are the cards I've got to play. It is, it is, uh, I, I feel the same way. I feel like, um, I have a joke in my show about how everyone, it comes to never in my life before have I gotten to a thing and go, nope, not doing it. You know, like your parents are like, Uber, nope. They just kind of draw the line at, or let's say TikTok. They go, hey, we're not doing new things.

We're, so when you're young, you're like, oh, this new. driverless car let's get in that thing this new and then i feel like you go i'm not doing that this at uh at walmart or not walmart at whole foods this newest thing this is uh you can connect your fingerprints to your amazon account i'm with you and you wave it over the register just like one step away from the market bro no that is the more i go nope i'm not doing that but i feel like Like when you're younger, is it big in Catholicism a fear of the end times? No. You don't have that like we do.

Yeah. And I would say, would you say in Protestantism, there's probably pockets where it's really. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of kind of cheesy movies about, you know, this big boom happens in a pile of clothes or sitting there. It's like the rapture. Yeah, we don't. You don't have that.

We don't have the rapture over here. Yeah. It didn't get there yet. It hasn't come to Catholicism. I don't think it's going to ever. but what are some things other than that that you've noticed that you're like, nope. Oh, man.

I don't tip for black coffee. Yeah. Well, I think you maybe are. I said that like it was a rebellious statement. Yeah, there you go. I'm not, dude, I, it's funny. I had a very bad Uber on the way over here. The guy, okay, he stopped to talk to.

some of his friends. No, that didn't happen. Yes, he did. And then his phone was going off and it would ring and ring it. He didn't press like, like silence. All right, what do you do with the stars? One to five. Oh, I see. All right. Let's let's let's let's because I feel like when you're younger, you go, he wants to have a job. We're, we're encouraging him to get out of you. You have a responsibility. Right. I don't want him. So I, I don't want you lying in me ending up with him. Yeah. So explain how this happened. Was he like, hey, do you mind if I quickly? No, he was just stopped. It was like a stand where like other drivers were he just stopped to like chat with them. How long? For, I mean, it was like a couple minutes. And he's like, hey, dude, one second. And I was like, okay. But again, when you're like, that's a that's a two star review from me. That's what I did. Yeah. And you go, gosh, I can't believe I. I never would do that. Yeah. No, I try. Try to like people. It's just getting increasingly harder the older I get. My, I, uh, well, I'm now, I'm now engaged. I saw that.

Congratulations. But she, uh, so did you see that? I don't know if you get, this is thing in the news yesterday, the girl got stabbed on the, yes. Okay. God have mercy. So horrific. Yeah.

And we're talking about that. And I, my fiance makes fun of me all the time because I, maybe just because I became 40, Matt, I'm getting involved. Yeah. In public. I'm getting involved. somebody has a loud muffler, I'll be like, hey, enough. When I was a kid, I looked up to Superman.

Now that I'm old, I look up to people who, when they're on an airplane and it parks, get off quickly so they can stop the flow of selfish people from pushing past and let everybody else. Those are my heroes now. Yeah, and when you were young, I feel like you just let, but now, I mean, I don't have children yet, but you go, especially locally, you're like, this is the environment where my, I, I if you it's like almost like you know the neighborhood like uh see something say something yeah but you also then you're when you're a kid you're like I'm not calling the cops but then when you're becoming adult you're like it's nice to see some cops around here yeah because

when you're a kid you're getting in trouble by the cops right they circle my neighborhood like it must be on their whatever and I go makes me feel better yeah is that is age is that an age thing Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's a good question. Is it an age thing? Probably. But you don't want to turn into a Karen. But it's both an age thing and an appropriate thing.

Like you were an idiot when you were younger for not caring about those things. And you're just becoming more brilliant and enlightened and beautiful. That's what I'd choose to think. And I think you, when you, every April 15th, when you sign the, sign away your taxes, I think the more you get involved in, the more you, the more you, pay the more you care. Well, let me ask you this, because I once, there was once a guy I've told this story too many times, so everyone's going to get sick of it, but

just so you can hear it, there was a fellow in front of me on the other side of the plane watching porn in front of my kids. And I yelled, could you, I hit him. I said, could you please stop watching porn, please? And I yelled it. And if he didn't stop, I would have said, I think this man's masturbating 100%. Yeah. My question

to you is, what would you do in that situation? That's what I'm saying. I said to my fiancee, yesterday, she goes, I can't believe this thing in the subway or the bus that nobody got involved. And then, I mean, it's happened all the time where somebody is, I go, hey. And I also, there was a fight happening one time,

downtown, and I got involved in that. How did you get involved? You're not going to kick a, this is a human being. Another human being was on the ground and he was kicking it. I think they might have been on drugs or something. But I'm not. So what did it look like as you got involved?

How did you do that? There's two, I think, I believe it was, maybe two homeless people. The guy was laying on the ground covering himself. The other guy was kicking him. And it's like, this is none of your business. I go, yeah, no, I understand that, but this is a human. Nevertheless.

Yeah, I one time in a gas station, someone was robbing the gas station. He was just taking a bunch of candy bars. And this is in downtown Philly. And I go, hey, man, same with you. Yeah. Hey, what's going? It's funny. What's you doing?

Yeah. And he goes, what are you going to do about it? And I go. Nothing. And that was the end of that. But you can't, but it's like, all right, we're not going to let the guy watch porn? No. So what would you do in that situation? In your situation? Yeah. Like, let's say that happens on the way home to Nashville. What? I mean, do you go flight attendant call button? Yeah. I think so. Because if you had to, well, maybe though, maybe. I mean, if you had have asked me what I would have done, I wouldn't have known what I would have done. Until you're in it. Yeah. And I just, I just reflexedly slapped him. And he did. And then I realized we got, two hours left on his flight. He's in the middle. And he's just, he stopped immediately. He did not look back once for two hours.

What does people, well, I think there is, what do people say? What do people comment? What do people, did they say you shouldn't have done that? No, oh, when I shared it. Yeah. Yeah, someone said you shouldn't have. I didn't punch him, but I slapped him harder than I meant. I was just pissed off.

My daughter is the right behind this joke. We have to start shaming people again. A little bit. I don't want people to feel ashamed of who they are. So maybe that's where the Protestants and Catholics can come together. We'll reach across the table. But I really do want people, like men in short shorts and airplanes, can't do it.

Excommunicated. Yeah, just a little bit of, a little bit. I think that's what comedy is. Or large women with short shorts. Is that too offensive? No, I think that's what a lot of comedy is. So comedy, when you're in the airplane, somebody walks in talking on speakerphone.

Oh my gosh. Okay, that's insane. But what comedy is, In essence, what we do when we tour on a live, on a, on a greater schedule, is you look around to see if somebody else is seeing this. And you go, yes. Or where's the camera? You go, yes. And they go, that's all comedy is.

I love that. That's all it is. Is he go, hey, do you notice this too? Government, culture, parenting, families. And you go, and they go. And then I go, and then I go, and then I'm at peace. with the speaker phone because it

I feel like where people get confused is you go and especially with with with in everything in 2020 and 2021 politics and everybody goes and they were going and you're like what

it like messes your brain up because you go it's your gas lit or you go maybe am I crazy you're everyone's everyone's standing six feet apart and then we're going to board this plane

we all see this doesn't make sense I just need one person to tell me I just need somebody that's what all of us comics the O'Von Andrew Schultz Joe Rogan all these guys got because nobody else was saying

that's all it was these guys aren't more fame they were just going because everybody else on TV couldn't because they would get fired remember because the big networks and they didn't they had interesting

but the guys with the comedians with platforms directly to the fans. So there was no sponsored by via Netflix. They wouldn't have shut all that stuff down. But a comic goes, and then everybody goes, this is the only guys saying it.

And then a lot of us just went through the roof. That's really all comedy is. That's awesome. I got to tell you one more uncomfortable story I had, and I was a complete coward and did nothing about it. I hate that part of this story. But I was at my local, this was several years ago,

living in Atlanta, went to the gym. As one does. They got a sauna, went into the sauna. Oh, no. There's like three fellas in there. Maybe not what you're thinking. But there's a fella there, and he's having a business meeting on his speakerphone. So the phone's on the ground where it's a little cooler, and he's having a meeting.

You're lying. I, oh my gosh. I don't know who I hate more, him or me for not. Oh, so you didn't do anything about it. I did nothing. I punked out. Yeah. I should have said, what are you doing?

Yeah, I think it's nice to start gently. You don't want to assume, you don't want to hit them first. What are you doing? Yeah. What are you doing? I'm just having a business being. Do you think maybe you're not the only person who exists? Yeah.

That's what I should have said. Everybody listening is having an argument with their significant other. I go, all right, if non-confrontational, keep your head down, don't make eye contact, go about your business, Karen, everybody's on here. On the spectrum. Yes. So you go, all right. If somebody was, if somebody, you're sitting at a cafe,

somebody glances at your wife in like a, in, you know, you go, I'm probably going to let that go. Uh-huh. Somebody whistles at her, maybe cat calls. There you go. Oh, you gosh, you can't. No, at some point, if somebody, if, obviously somebody, if, and you don't, I would imagine, I don't know,

but you don't fight people. No, I don't want to fight people. If somebody touched your wife or you would, you would fight them. Of course. What do you mean? Of course. I would just put my body in front. Maybe I misunderstood, but if someone's groping my wife, of course I fight them.

You would interrupt, you would physically intervene. Even if I got destroyed, I would put my body. Yes, what do you mean? Or your child as possible. Because you go, if you, if you're the back and forth, if you stop at a stoplight and you eye in another guy, he looks you up. down you're like well so you both if you fight him you even if you win the fight you still lose yeah because you shouldn't be fighting it's the dumb thing to be fighting about to protect your wife's honor

even if you lose the fight yes you could still win yes just like in the sauna thing you go i should have exactly even if he go to go f you yep you go well that was what should have been done exactly gosh now do you have moments like that from your childhood were you? I was, I would say I was pretty weak as a kid. And the fights I got into, I lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I didn't. I wish I got into more fights and lost more of them so that I could be more comfortable. Give it a little bit more. A little bit more. Some of them I did. It's still, but I'm sitting in the airport and there's a husband or wife fighting with each other. Or she's like just being very demeaning to him about, it was something about

the home insurance. Yeah. Well, you didn't. And I wanted to just be, I just put in my head, headphones. I didn't move to another seat. I could have. There's not many seats there. I wanted to just, I like fantasize about being like, back up. Hey, you should be kinder to him. Let me tell you what my wife did. We arrived in Paris. All the YouTube comments are just going to be full of people going, I did this and it went bad or I should as perfect. Well, my wife didn't confront anyone, but there was this woman talking to her husband like he was a naughty child. Yes. It was gross. Yes.

And my wife looked at me and went, she's not attractive enough to talk to him like that. Yeah. So she could hear her? No. Oh yeah, yeah. So she would have been cooler if she had had done that. Yeah. But I've heard someone say those exact words before, but it was a man who said it.

I'm like, you don't say that about women. Whoa. But when I was like, she's not really attractive to talk to him like, you said it. It's true. You said it. But what do you, but I would never say that to the man. It just heaps shame upon him. If you said to the woman, it just heaps shame upon him who already feels like, you

who already feels like I'm in this friggin' relationship. And that's what, and then you all of a sudden, that's a little, she's being a little bit humorous. I would guess. Yeah. And then you go, oh, I feel great now. You were like, this was a thing that was like. It diffuses the tension.

Yeah, and you go, no, oh, yeah, whatever. And then you go, gosh, that's funny. You laugh about it. And then it kind of, it dissipates or something. A little bit. So that's wild that you were on Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon. I'm sorry.

Yeah, Jimmy Fallon. That was wild. I mean, yeah, wild. Tell me how that happened because I would think that's like when you feel like maybe I accidentally made it somehow.

Certainly. I think it was the first the first comedian that came up in church to... Because you already have a Netflix special, correct? I'm so sorry to that. I did, I did.

I did. I did in 2019 and then I lost it. Okay, well, you had a series. And then, yeah, and then, yeah, we have it. To go over to Jimmy Fallon, you go, I mean, yeah, I call, they, you go back and forth for years, by the way. You do jokes, and they say, you got to go do it live. You can't just do it to a camera. You got to go do it live and they watch it.

I need you to slow down and explain every step of this for me because I'm, I think people will be genuinely fascinated. So you're invited to audition, essentially, and you have to fly up to New York or what? so they so i in essence uh vocalized to my representation that i would like to it's going too slow now just speed up a little bit try to get on jimmy phall and they go yeah sounds good we know we've got in contact with the booker we've sent other comedians over there we need you to give us five minutes so you're looking i mean i have hours of material you're looking at well that's not going to work that's not going to work that's too christian that's too that's not and then you go all right here's a five minutes, send it to them, they go, first time they go, absolutely not, but we like, you send

them a video. Yeah. I see. That's the first step. Of me doing stand-up. Oh, we like, why do they say absolutely not? I think I had some jokes that were like off, a little bit off color. Okay.

Not dirty, but just like a little bit too maybe politically incorrect. But that's tricky about comedies. You kind of got to be a little bit of that, but for TV, it's a fine line. So they go, well, we don't like, but we do like this guy. So give us more. They didn't say, no. They go, we don't like this content. Give us another.

And I was like, oh, maybe I can do this stuff about my parents or maybe I thought maybe me not being a man. And then my relationship. And then I went another one. They go, oh, we, we, this is more in line. So then they got to refine it. But we don't like this joke. Move this part out.

And you send it. I mean, this goes on. for months. I would almost say years. Going down to the comedy club on Monday night, I just need five minutes, turn on the cameras, do it, send it back. We don't like the one part you mentioned.

I go, well, just, it's the same joke. Just take that part out. That's how it would be. And then they, I was sitting in my kitchen counter, middle of June, and I got an email that said, you're confirmed for the Tonight Show, June 16th. What was that log? Oh my, I mean, I got you, I got...

Because you've been doing this for years. I don't know if you remember this. I've met you a long time ago at a life team conference. Yeah, you spoke to a Catholic conference. And you were great. And that was about, what, 15 years ago or something? Man, I didn't deserve to be there. I don't know what, yeah, yeah.

I was, uh, yeah, was in Phoenix. Yeah, you did excellent. Everyone thought you did great. It was really great. Yeah, I think I had a unique perspective on Catholics, yeah. And on, and being an evangelical that everybody was kind of like, this is awesome. But I think, what people don't often realize is like you hear about someone you know it's wild i just heard about

nat baggatsy three days ago i heard about him that's insane he's been he's been working for years oh yeah i'm like oh now i now know he exists he'll come to the uh what do you got a hockey team here i don't know what do you got a big sports you come to the arena here what is sport i don't know sell 50 000 tickets yeah and he's clean that's right up yeah yeah you like that yeah but my point is just like, I don't think people realize how much effort you've had to put in to get a moment like that, yeah? Oh, yeah. There you go. And I told my fiance, I go, if they, one more time, because I tour on the weekends, and then Monday night and Tuesday night, I'm going down to the comedy club to try to work on this five minutes. I go, I don't, I need to be resting. I don't have

time to be down here every off night. And I go, if this last clip doesn't, if the tonight show doesn't, I think I'm just going to be. We're done with the late night show? Yeah, we're done kind of pursuing that dream, I guess. And then they were like, we love it. And what's funny about it is then you get to a new guy. And then you dissect every word of that five minutes for the next two months. Practice it up in 50 times every night.

With this fella? Or with you? You do it locally and then you send it to him. video switch this who's the guy not jimmy fallon no no i know that uh his name's michael cox do they did they assign a guy if you to work with uh he he he he all he does is comedy okay so he's in charge so he probably works with a couple at a time wow yeah and it's it's unbelievable i had no idea that one and then you got to go i was doing it on monday night so just real quick so you're given this comedy routine to this fellow this five minutes to this one fella repeatedly yeah in person

or uh over he lives in new york at some point you're like I'm sorry you've heard this a lot. I don't even know if it's funny anymore. We're like obsessed with it, every word. Yeah. Moving it, switching it. If it doesn't contribute to the punchline, get rid of it. Wow.

Add that tag to the back. There's one story in there where I talk about Shakira coming onto my timeline. And so you go up to New York City the night before the Tonight Show and you do it five times locally at the comedy seller, the world famous comedy seller. So now me and the fellow. are in person for the first time yeah i do it five times in front of the same crowd no different crowd okay and it matt i'm telling you it was bombing horrible and he goes this is perfect because television is different than a a cd bar where everyone's the guy before me is like have you ever like dated a girl from estoria when you live in queens and you're like what that's all the

stuff is going and you're like, my girlfriend just added me to her group chat. They're like, who is this? And it's just bombing, bombing, bombing. He goes, this is going to be perfect on television. This is going to be perfect. And you trusted him. I had to. I had no choice. Yeah. But he said, so there's a line in there, but I don't know why Shakira's on my algorithm. Yeah. My mom was at a Mexican restaurant. She ordered in Spanish. Maybe my phone heard her. I love that. And then the second line is she's Colombian. I ordered some Colombian. coffee. Maybe that was it. And it was bombing so much. I took out the Colombian part. And he rushes up to me. And he goes, hey, you have to leave the Shakira Colombian party. And I go,

why, it's bombing. He goes, well, without it, it seems a very racist. Because I'm going, oh, right. Oh, it's a Mexican. She's Colombian. My mom was at a Mexican restaurant. Okay. And, but I can't say she's at a Latino restaurant. That's not, nobody says that. It's a Mexican restaurant. So without me knowing that she's Colombian, if I know she's Colombian, it's a funny miscommunication between me and my mom.

If I don't know she's Colombian, that's very like a, it's perceived as racist. For network television. Not for a local show, but he's like. So when you say five times, I'm probably getting hung up on the details, but are you giving it,

they leave another group come in? There's a comedy club with like three different rooms. Oh, okay. And then there's a bunch of comedy clubs. There's a two, and you take a, you'll take an Uber five minutes away,

and there's another. And he's like kind of the king of New York in a way so he can escort you around. I'm sure having a one hour special is obviously different to having five minutes. But just going through this experience with this fella, did it teach you a lot about how to be running comedy

in the future? And what did it teach you? He go, oh, I don't, I don't communicate like that. where every word, I would go, you ever been to a coffee shop that seems kind of Christian? Like, just what we talked about on the way up here. And I would just riff on it, meaning I would have that that's called a premise.

Okay. It's a funny, do you feel like coffee shops are very left or very right? Yes. I would take that to stage and I would just kind of explore in that topic. And if people liked it, related to it, I would just kind of keep it. It would never really be written down word for word. Or not, definitely not.

I could be saying something in that if I was going to take that set to the Tonight Show, I would really look at every word of it. Then you go, oh, well, I was saying this phrase, really if the words don't contribute to the punchline, get rid of it. Wow. It's not helping the context. And I was like, and I walked in and I was in Jacksonville. They're like, well, why are you saying it was in Jacksonville?

Excellent. I went to a coffee shop. That was necessary for me. but it doesn't help them get a bigger laugh out of it. Yeah. It's just, and then you go, well, get rid. Because if you got, I mean, we had, it was five minutes and 12 seconds. Yeah.

Like to the second. And is there a clock that you're looking at? Yes, dude. And there's, it's a thousand different things that he's, you're supposed to walk out behind the curtain. Look to the rights, acknowledge Jimmy. Take a couple more steps. Look to the left, acknowledge the roots.

That's the house band. Then walk up to this. They tell you to do that. Four-leaf clover. Stand right there. There's huge cameras. He goes, you're gonna set up to the left, set up to the right punchline down the middle.

So it's like, you're supposed to be, and it's like, but also just be loose and have fun. You're like, all right, yeah. All right, it's the biggest stage of your life times a thousand. That is, that is wild. And you've given this five minutes so many times. When the lights were on and you walked out

from behind the curtain, was it a sort of dissociative experience, a sort of out of body? Yeah. And at one point, did you, as you were delivering the jokes, you're like, I'm on the night, I'm on the tonight show. I'm on the tonight show.

Well, I think the, every comic, I don't care who you are, it's like, we're on the way to the Super Bowl, the football player and all of his family, he's like, this is amazing, we're at the Super Bowl. The player is like, yeah, I still got to play. Yeah. Like, I know you guys are all down here

and we're having fun and we made it. I still got to play. So I wasn't having fun in New York City prior to going on it. Oh, I bet. It's terrified. Yeah. And then as soon as you get a big, big laugh.

Oh, that must just be. The first one. Yeah. Then you go, oh. If you like, if you like this, this next four minutes is going to be game over. Yeah. And you don't get the first one. It's terrifying.

It's terrifying. Bombing in comedy. Sometimes there's these evil, not evil, but like, what's the call when you like to watch something that's, he'd like to see it fall apart or you like to see it? Oh, Schadenfreude? where you love that it's massacist. Oh, massacist? What does that mean?

Well, I think it has sexual ramifications, but I think it's like a glutton for punishment or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that. Or you just love to see comedians bombing. Oh, yeah. A lot of people like that. Yeah, so what was that, does that ever get easier?

Oh, man. Well, no, I don't think any comedian is like particularly confident. I mean, we are, I guess, but in terms of like I'm going to make another sports reference but you know Michael Jordan or Tom Brady or Tiger Woods they don't what the crowd is doing

is irrelevant to them the crowd could be cheering them booing them silent loud what they're trying to do is not related to and the comic like we need

them and if they don't that's right do it we are embarrassed that's exactly right and every it's also live and everyone like if it's like a conversation and you might get out on stage and the other person doesn't want to talk to you and then you're screwed you just yeah awkwardly and you got to do that for an hour we can't just go hey this is not working out i'll go back to the green room we got to but if you if you if it's obviously going great it's there's nothing better to me no better our form but if it uh if it is going bad you can't like if you if you go to a a band a musician they're playing let's say they have a bad show the musicians get back to the greener like that one wasn't good the crowd may not know that they might have been there like i don't know it seemed

fine to me at comedy yeah every i know it's bad if everyone or else around me thinks it's bad or the the the feedback is is we all know yeah so we all it's all like oh i didn't know or that you go to a gymnastics competition they're like oh she didn't do the you're like well i didn't i don't know about gymnastics i don't i didn't know that one wasn't good in comedy you go i think he's trying to make people laugh they aren't laughing it's it's so much more vulnerable To have to get up and try to make people laugh. That's a very vulnerable thing. And if they don't receive you, man, it would hurt.

Well, the biggest fear of people is a public speaking. So you're adding. So here's the difference, right? I'm a public speaker. And I think I'm decent. And I can be funny. But I'm not going up there to make him laugh. If I was going up there to make him laugh, I'd be terrified out of my mind.

You know, so I can go. That's an add-on. You're not here for the laugh. The laughter is a bonus. If I throw something in. The laughter is not a bonus. The laughter is the whole point. Yeah, if you go, we've had similar situations at the comedy club that either are speakers or like corporate speakers and even pastors.

And they go, they're funny, funny. And I go, yeah, come down. See how funny you are. Come down to the club. And then you're our next comedian and they say your name. And then it's we don't, and then it's, we must be. mentally, some wire didn't connect for, because we are like obsessed with it.

Well, no, but I think what you, what I think makes sense to me is if you get that laugh, you get addicted to it and you know you can do it. And so the bombing can't even dissuade you at that point because getting the reception that you hope for, even just once, is enough to help you keep chasing it. I've been talking a lot lately about my friends at the College of St. Joseph the Worker,

you know, Jacob Imam, Mike Sullivan, Andrew Jones, and company. The guys who started the college, combines the Catholic intellectual tradition with skilled trades training. Well, listen to this. They're growing their program and are looking to connect with experienced Catholic tradesmen to hire as instructors. So if you are an experienced carpenter, plumber, HVAC technician or electrician and want to help mentor and teach future Catholic tradesmen, go right now to College of St.Joseph.com slash careers to connect with the college and see how you can become

part of something truly special. And if you're watching or listening and know a tradesman who needs to hear this message, please invite them to reach out to the college. Again, that's College of STJoseph.com slash careers. College of St.Joseph.com slash careers. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, the first time I ever did it, I bombed, obviously. How old were you in? 25. I was in 25, the Laughing Skull Lounge of June 19th of 2009. Okay. And what made you think I can get up there and make people love? That was at church. Like an evangelical church, at least back in the 2000s, they have, you know, like after the worship, you'd have a guy come up and do like the announcements. Here's where the food drive is. The Bible studies are starting in the fall. Can you, we're trying to save some room at that.

nine o'clock service so could maybe have some people switch to the 11 o'clock for the new people and i was that guy yeah and i was similar to you yeah i didn't go out for jokes but i was like they love it oh it's this kid riffing and i was like i would be like i'm going to go to the church picnic is on saturday i'm probably just going to go to meet girls but and it was just so it's not a dirty joke but it's so like can you say that yes that's the whole yeah that was the whole thing and It was like, I can't believe he said that. Or like, some of y'all need to, honestly, communion's going to be after service. I follow some of y'all in mind.

You probably need to take it twice. Like stuff like. Okay. And they were like, I can't believe this guy is saying this. But it was, it wasn't, I think a lot of my comedy now and, and, and, uh, I've obviously been to Catholic churches and, and, in, uh, I went ahead of a show in Salt Lake City and I went to a LDS church. a Mormon church.

And I think people know at this point that I'm not here. I'm at the church. It's at one point if a guy's in the parking lot pointing fingers at the religion or it was like, I go to this church. I serve this church. You know that I love y'all. And I think all of my comedy, even I go to a NASCAR race or maybe making fun of a county fair or even making fun of, they go, well, he is one of us.

this so he kind of have a little bit more of a no he doesn't have it's like how your brother and sister can criticize your parents but your friends can't and i and when i when i when i miss maybe on a sketch or a stand-up it i do miss when i do have a little bit too much real anger involved i didn't understand that um like if a joke doesn't sometimes a joke everybody goes it's so funny and it's a little bit of truth in there but it's palatable enough that they go, I mean, it has to be true to be funny. Yeah, yeah.

So it's like, I can't believe he said that, but also I know this guy comes from a place. Like sometimes I'm, if I made the joke about the girl on speakerphone, in the airplane, I go, this B word, I can't believe she's poor. It's like, yeah, dude. It's harsh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes with, with, it's mean.

It's mean. Yeah. And sometimes with, I don't know, religion. a little bit, maybe politics, maybe, uh, like sometimes guys make jokes about their wives or significant others. You go, you know what I'm saying? Just that little bit of, uh, that might have, he might have some actual things to work out. Is that makes sense? Yes, of course, unhealed trauma from his Christian use. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, where you go, oh, I'm uncomfortable by that. Yes, yes. And you haven't reconciled this within yourself. This isn't funny. Yes. Your process,

this is therapy. There you go. There you go. processing something. You're saying it better than I do. Yes, you go, gosh. And if I, if I took to, if I took to my podcast on Monday and railed on the woman on speakerphone for an hour, you'd be like, well, this is not beneficial to my podcast. This is just you having, you, you need to work out your real anger. And then you can get to a place of where you can, you can commentate on it. without like essential oils. A lot of people, I made a joke about them, and then a lady comes up to me, and she goes, hey, I threw out my, I have a $5,000 collection of essential oils. I threw them out because of your bit.

Or very offended that I made a joke. I go, I don't care. I think it's silly. Oh, right. I don't have any, like, I think it's silly. You don't want to crusade to change people's behavior. I don't, I don't. the point. Yeah, I don't care that. I do think it's silly. But again, if you are committed to it and you love it and you think it works, keep doing it. And then you can laugh at it. But if, you know what I'm saying? I'm hoping you a bit about essential oils. You call them optional oils. Yeah, yeah. I said not essential. They're optional. They're optional. They're for thousands. They smell fine, but they're not curing cancer. I remember I once had a couple sit me down and straight face tell me that it will cure a cancer. Yeah.

there's some lavender oil or something. And I thought, spearment. Look, I don't know anything. I don't know how plastic's made. I don't know how to make anything. I know nothing. But I know that what you're saying is not true.

And I don't want to be in this conversation anymore. Yeah, but if you went on a, like you did, yeah. If you were angry, if you, let's say you had a, you did, you believed that and you, instead of getting chemo and going to the doctor, you used that and that loved one died. You would be very,

very angry. Yeah. And then you go, well, these, these, it's just a fine line to walk in comedy and especially when you're talking about also religion. I bet. I want to get to that. I think it was Bill Burr.

It may have been somebody else. Oh, you don't know Michael Jordan, but you know Bill Burr? No, I knew who Michael Jordan was. I just joke. See, this is me not getting the joke. This is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it was him or somebody else who said he likes comedians that make him feel that everything's okay. And that's what I loved about that Nate fella, Yeah, Nate. That's what I love about. James McCann, made of mine from Australia. I'm not sure if you've seen him yet.

That's what I love about Brian Regan. Great job of it. I just feel like, oh, everything. What is that? What is that I'm saying? It's very therapeutic. He's the perfect amount of self-deprecating. He doesn't go too far.

And doesn't be like, like, I've told us. He's not mean. No. I just, I want to laugh. He's like, Tim Hawkins is a comic I used to tour with. Oh, my goodness. He's one of the greats. So he, I was at his show.

at the Fisher Center in Nashville. I was watching. I live in Nashville. He was in town. I was letting go come by the show. I'm sitting there watching on the side there. And he has this joke about a CPAP machine. He just got a CPAP machine.

He's like, doesn't that spice up romance in the bedroom? He's doing the whole act out. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, brother, I saw this couple sitting in the front row. I don't know how to say it in a more spiritual way. way, chains were literally falling off. I got chills talking about it. Because they, you could tell that they have had, just like what you're saying, it makes

you feel like you could tell that it was a, in between them in the bedroom, that he felt shame about having it. She felt, this makes me cry almost. She felt maybe less attracted to him or more distant from him. He's got to put on this whole hose. He's like, what's wrong with your body? now you can't breathe. And if you don't have this thing, you'll die.

And she's like, whew, and he was, he was making light of it in a way that they were like, oh, I don't even know how I'm communicating this. You are to me. I get it. That's beautiful. And they go, oh, man, this is a real disconnect that they've had in their marriage, the person that they love the most. This guy put it in a way that it disarmed everything.

and now they can laugh about it and they can either it's just like some of those if you do it right a comic sometimes it can be a little bit too maybe didn't go far enough or went too far if it's like just perfect

like I love this woman I'm committed to her that being said some of the outfits she wears to bed are not necessarily inspiring romance or something that makes sense and then you feel safe in that in that joke yeah and then everybody goes

right and then you go right and you go gosh or or the wife telling you directions like what would I do how would I ever find a parking spot if my wife wouldn't he says it you go we do this yes oh that makes it me feel so much better I was talking to Andrew Claven who's an excellent fiction writer and I said what I love about fiction is that I'll read it sometimes and it makes me feel less alone yeah that's it and it sounds like that's what you're saying same and and and every time you're it's funny. He said that in music is the same. Every time you are sad, you do go to art.

You don't go to statistics. You don't go to math. You go to art. Yeah, if you're doing something healthy, like you might doomscroll, but that's doing nothing for you. Yeah, if you want any kind of help. You're to feel, man, I mean, those old hill song songs

that are just when I was in the darkest places of my life that with everything that God is here for you and walking next to you. and my gosh, I would listen to those songs. I'll go back and listen to the very, very first album. Yeah, with everything, he's one of my... Oh, gosh. Oh, I love it.

And so you go, if I saw... If I saw Joel Houston, I feel the same way about Chris Martin from Coldplay, which is not even Christian. And you go, fix you. Lights will guide you home. When you try your best and you don't succeed, when you give a...

Would you do it? And it's not what you need. What could be were? And we're sitting in there. At Nissan Stadium, just bawling, dude, just, and we're like, gosh, dude, this, if you saw him, and every artist that's on the opposite side of it, me sometimes, it's very uncomfortable, because I don't think a human is meant to be worshipped, but you go, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know

where, it might be in a book somewhere, I don't know, uh, but you go, hey, a man, Tiger Woods, you're, me and my dad used to watch you and we, and you would just, we, we would just, we who were inspired by your story. And every Sunday, we would sit down, you're playing golf and hitting a ball into a cup, but I just wanna say, it's always very uncomfortable for the person to receive. Me included, and I'm sure you include it.

When you go, hey, I'm just, well, I don't know if you have this, but they call it critic math. So people who tell me like, I'm an idiot loser, wanna be, I'm like, you're exactly right. I've always known that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when they praise me, I'm like,

there's no way they can be true, you're just flattering me. It's uncomfortable. So I'll receive criticism as infallible, but I'll receive praise This is bullshit. I said, I had to know

to say that. This can't be. Yeah. Yeah. Which is something I'm working with Jesus on. But, well, I was,

yeah. Oh, I'll tell you one story on that. Please. I, so, and I was in, I was in rehab in 2019.

You laugh at that. But, uh, no, you don't say that. No, you're only laughing at that because we were like, we were going to,

we were going to bring this topic up. But it's funny. Yeah, well, I just said to you, I don't want to, whoever comes on my show, I don't want anyone to ever feel ambushed or would ever have to talk about what they don't want to talk about.

Okay. So of all of choices of my own personal destruction. So I found myself in rehab and everybody knew all the personal stories, all the things in my private life that I would always hope no one ever found out. Everyone found out about everything. God bless you. Okay. Of my own making, by the way.

I'm not a victim of anybody. All the choices are mine. So I'm like, and I, you know, the first day you're in rehab, you kind of. In essence, like tell your story about how you got, maybe not day one, but like week one. And then, you know, everybody, and then I will never forget this. They were going, hey, we just want to let you know that we think you're a good man. And you're like, what? Same to the same to, you're like, what?

I just wanted to let you know that you might have made some poor choices in your life, but you showing up here and trying to take accountability for your actions and get better for yourself and for your family and for your future. we just want to say we're proud of you what people mailing me letters we love you we're proud all my closest friends and then true just like what you said after like they probably gave me my phone back after maybe like three months or something like that wow after three months i got my phone back and then they were saying you're a good man you're a good man you're a good man i would hear that all day nine to five i would go home get on twitter and go find people saying i was horrific

oh why did you do that because that i believed about myself just the same what just what you just said you go no i get it this this matt is is the way he's illuminated the scripture and and helped me encourage me in my faith and you're like i just yelled at my kid or i just didn't take out the trash all the humanity of all the stuff and you go i want to murder that guy yeah and you go that you can't be what you're saying about me that cannot be and then it's uncomfortable because i didn't think that about myself i would say i do more now than i used to but it would it's almost like it's almost like people are trying to put clothes on you that don't fit like this isn't i need to go find clothes that yeah yeah and then it's just over and over they would say and i wanted to

i wanted to run out and uh like in rehab the place i I went to, at least I don't know about other rehabs. There's no, no escaping. So like, not from, it's not prison. You can physically, there's no drugs, alcohol. Yeah. There's no televisions. There's no, dude, listen to this.

There's no sugar. There's no caffeine. There's no fiction books. There's no, if you get a runner's high from working out, they don't even let you do that. So no, when you feel an uncomfortable feeling, sadness, depression, not good enough. There's nowhere to go. Because everybody now, you get on your phone, you'll start, you have a glass of wine,

you'll watch some trashy TV, you might go look at porn, you might do, you might do something harder. But in rehab, there's no, I feel like trash about myself, I'm the worst person on earth. Sit in it. Yep. How did you deal with that for the first? Did it get easier? How long were you there?

I mean, in rehab, I mean, in the, in reality. rehab, did it get easier? And how long are you there? So the first day, you go, if you've been, if you've ever been like somebody and everybody knows someone in their life, they're like, I hope they don't get a phone call that they're dead.

Everybody has that, but you go, gosh, it's not going well. So you go check in, literally, they'll take away your like belts, shoelaces, just so you can't kill yourself. Some people are on the edge of death. And then you live in like an acute wing where they video, you're with, somebody at 24-7 and they've, and then after, you would sit down with a therapist and like day two

and you go, yeah, I just, I'm pretty sad. And they go, oh, you're free to have your socks and your shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's your belt back. Oh, here's, you can go live in the dorms. And then you're like, oh, you don't need to be on shadow. And as you, now I can, I don't, I've been sober since that day. Now I can go to a gas station and not. It was an alcohol. I don't know. That was part of it. Yeah, alcohol, depression. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now I have enough, I don't know what it is. I think I think if you just, if you do let it, your brain will, with the help of a therapist, then obviously an encouragement in the right direction, your brain will fix that sadness. We would drive by a McDonald's on our way until we did this like equine therapy. We had to go out to this horse and we would drive by this McDonald's. Brother, I go. God, if I could ever get back into it, McDonald's. You know, like your dopamine like resets to like zero.

And you're like, dude, if I had like a Coke, then I'd be happy. I would be, if I could have a Coke and watch a baseball game on TV, I would be. That's what's beautiful about the everybody, even if you don't go to rehab, you should go like a dopamine detox or something. I'm so grateful. Does that make sense? I don't need that to make sense. It makes all the sense in the world and it makes sense for my own personal experience,

but I'm so grateful that you're talking about this because, you know what's funny in Christian circles, we're all comfortable saying, hey, I'm a sinner. But no one's as comfortable being like, I like to masturbate. Yeah, yeah, that isn't it? That's not a servant series. I like to commit adultery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, that's me. Yeah. And yet, we are dealing with our own sins. And we recently had someone in the Catholic space who was doing really well and was reaching a lot of people. and then a bunch of texts came out

and they were horrific. We never experienced that in the Evangelical Church. No, tell us more. What is that? So what happened? Yeah, right. But I mean, I immediately wrote to him and said, I love you.

We're not evangelical, we're Protestant versus you. I said evangelical, I messed that up. I'm just gonna keep being serious as you interject. I said, I love you. Not because what you did was good, obviously. Yeah, we'll get that 100%. But like, just ask, like anyone who's not compassionate to what happened in your life,

or this guy's life or my life in the future, that'll be fun, is imagine if every awful thing you've ever done just got opened up for the world to look at and comment on it. Like, what would that be like for you? And so why don't you condemn the sin, but like love the sin and because this bandwagon thing where we all jump on and start pointing at people and hating them, I really think it's a way to kind of direct the spotlight

from my stuff to somebody else so I can feel more comfortable. So long as people aren't looking at me, then I can feel good. So I'm really grateful that you're, yeah. Yeah, I wonder if, like, there's a, actually just everything that, like, if, Sarah Silverman, who's not a Christian, by the way, not a believer in any, she was talking about cancel culture and this whole, and she goes, all right, well, what's the, let's say something happens to you. Okay, yeah, was it bad?

Yes, is he proud of it? No, is it illegal shirt? But what's, okay, what's the plan for Matt now? That's what you're saying. All right, so what, what, yeah, we need to all, but what's to play, if there's, if, if, if I do a show in a prison, like a maximum security prison, and I, and I left there and I go, man, so you rob a liquor store, you, you, you, uh, get in a domestic situation. The judge and all the jury that goes, hey, for this, two and a half years or six years or 12 years or whatever, once you complete. that you've paid your price, you've paid it, you're free to go. You don't have to carry around shame for you. I did, I did this.

They told me this is the punishment. And for this culture, you're like, well, what's Matt, if you beat up a, and you go, it's on the TMZ. You're like, get him out of here, get he done the, what's his plan? What's his way forward, in essence? especially when the people you're talking about have developed a specific skill like yourself

or like someone who runs a, you know, whatever. They're a podcaster or something. Like, what do you want them to do? And maybe there are certain circumstances. I think there are certain circumstances where if someone has engaged in serious behavior, then it's like maybe you're cool to just step out of the limelight.

No, no one said that actions shouldn't have consequences. Yeah. For sure, if you're a politician and you're abyseling money, you're like, oh, well, you can't be a politician anymore. I'm still going to text you and say I love you because I would imagine any athlete, every time an athlete, artist, musician, comedian gets... Tiger Woods would be an example, right?

What do you want to do? What are you going to do? What would you, what's your Tiger Woods plan? It can't be... It's like in the Bible, they would just send them out to the desert. You're like, what that can't be. There has to be some way of, you know, If you, if you, rehabilitation.

Something. Otherwise, I was, I'm not with talking to a guy in, the evangelical community, big singer, very popular, just got run through all this kind of stuff. And he would admit that he made a lot of poor choices. And, and, and, uh, I go, you want to go to, you want to go to breakfast? And he was like, yeah. And some people in my community was like,

what if you what if people see you with him and assume it's a club i go i will be proud i'll take a photo with him and post it myself like i yeah no one supporting murder yet no he didn't do that but you're like yeah dude we don't like what or what's the plan for them forward what's the you know what i'm saying 100 percent i think there might be a distinction when it comes to ministry yeah you you know like It's one thing if you're a comedian or something like whatever. But if you are a pastor of a church and you've committed adultery, I think it might be wise to spend the rest of your life off of the... I'd probably say so.

In repentance, you know? Or... But in non-ministery related things, yeah. What's the way back? Yeah, what's the way back? If you go, hey, I like if somebody says, something racist and they get it yeah like what's the fella Kramer yeah yeah for it looked like that destroyed him did you see his interview with Seinfeld on comedians and cars it was yeah poor guy

just wanted for the rest of so so so Elaine Jerry George they're all out making stuff making movies and he and I think a lot I don't know him but you're like that might he might have put that on himself like he might have worn a lot of that we probably especially now you're like dude, you can come back. You know what I'm saying? He might be paying his own sins that we didn't really necessarily put on him. But there has to be a...

God bless him. Yeah, but if you go, hey, do you want to... I just don't... When something comes out about somebody and everybody piles on, I just sometimes in, as a comedian, I make a joke about everything. There was a megachurch pastor.

uh in north carolina that got a d ui i believe you got it and there people were like dude roast him or like and i go there's something funny about that to me i don't think the guy especially if you got a certain talent i believe god put you on earth to to hit a golf ball to shoot a basketball to be a pastor to play guitar and if and if your personal sins have you not be able to do the thing that you love that makes me sad every time that would seem like clearly the more Christian approach as you said and you're going to reiterate this 8,000 times because people seem to desire us to misunderstand you we're not saying justice shouldn't happen we're not saying there aren't consequences we aren't saying that people don't commit evil yeah yeah

but it's to say well when people do commit public evil yeah okay at certain circumstances that should be cooled out yeah but just go easy because i think people take far too much delight in calling other people sin out. That's a good way to say it. That weird joy. Yeah. What is that? Joy.

It's not good. Well, if you go in all the, it's like a feverish excitement. You never want to see someone, well, you don't care. Someone, quote, below you. Someone gets fired from the gas station because they, you're like, that doesn't.

They were looking at porn on the magazine rack. Yeah, they go, okay. You're like, that doesn't, but if someone up high oh yeah especially the higher they are athlete celebrity let's the politician you're here they're up here we want to see them full if we knock them i by default go up a peg up a one yeah or half yeah i think in the i don't know i just think that the i mean the catholic church and the and the Protestant church and no no I just think what what some people that are very critical of it what's y'all's plan to just burn it down like the Catholic church is obviously

a bunch of humans in there same with and you're like the church the mega churches we need to okay and and what's the plan there's just a lot of people these days I feel like just every time the news comes out of something, yeah, I'm like, in a way, the world's reaction to Christians falling from grace is a compliment because they recognize the standards that we say has to be held. You said it, brother. I remember it was it the Duggers, what was that? Yeah, Josh Dugger. There was a 12 kids in counting or something. Sure, yeah, yeah. I remember when it came out that that fellow was committing adultery or something. I remember seeing the absolute glee of a main stream television host who you could tell hated them because of what they had.

There's this, there's this excellent term that Nietzsche uses, resentimo, which is the French word for resentment. And it, what it means is, I hate what I believe myself impotent to attain. So if I look at a family that's happy and beautiful and the mother is put together and the kids are put together and they're well spoken and I truly believe, and if I truly believe, Yeah. And if I truly believe I can't have that, I hate it. I demonize marriage. I demonize fidelity. I, you know, I demonize the woman choosing to stay at home. I demonize all of it because I'm so afraid. I can't. Well, you see people taking selfies at, you know, when they work out. And you might say, look how arrogant, look how prideful. And that might be true. But the reason

you're upset is because you can't have a body like that, because look at you. You've never stuck to a resolution in your life. And so you don't want to have to put the spotlight on the that out yeah yeah you i remember in uh the 2020 when everybody was uh coming off the road nobody was selling tickets right the your agents like hey nobody we can't tour Nate funny we bring him up is one of my closest friends in comedy we play golf all the time he was selling out everywhere so you can't get on the conference call on Tuesday and say nobody's doing it because somebody is I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world.

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They were like, well, oh, nobody's selling tickets. We got to cancel these shows. We got to, we, nobody, it's because of COVID. And they go, well, he's doing it. So maybe that's another reason. That, that, it makes you want to get rid of him. Uh-huh. Because then we can now be, but I go, I don't want to hear any,

anybody saying that we can't because somebody is. Same with, yeah, yeah. Famous example. Ashley Madison you know that it's a website where you find a I was thrilled to see that thing get destroyed of course find a partner to cheat with

okay and this was back in 2009 or something so Tim Tebow who is a Christian yeah I know who he is yeah okay one of the two football players I know he said publicly in an interview and his parents are missionaries and he's a strong Christian

he used to you know pray after he scored a touchdown He goes, I am going to remain a virgin until marriage. I just don't believe in premarital sex. He didn't, he just, Ashley Madison, you can go look this up. I'll look it up after. Offered a million dollars if someone could prove that they slept with him. Because just by nature of him existing, he was a threat. Cast such a question mark onto their whole business.

it's like you're going to a party, everybody's drinking and you're the one guy not drinking. They want to make you why's you drinking? Yeah, it should be no problem. But if you, especially if you have, I mean, drinking, that's a different party. Especially you would go, well, just by the nature of him

saying, I don't want to live like that. It feels like, it can be received as an accusation to those who feel guilty already. Yeah. There's a lot of, like, attack on like a clean, like, comedy now. Is there? Yeah, because just. because it's getting so, and we never said we were clean.

We just joke about different stuff. It's funny that that would be the case because I don't necessarily associate clean with Christian. I mean, Jerry Seinfeld. Well, there's a lot of guys that are clean that aren't Christian, but you go, it's such an attack on it now because it is like same type of thing. Well, I have to write.

Yeah, we never said that. We never said, we just, everybody grew up a certain way. My mom would wash my mouth out with soap. said, dang in my house. That's just the way I was raised. And you, everybody's raised differently. Just by the nature of somebody coming in and being clean, they do not like it.

It's not a moral issue or something like that, but a guy goes, who is it, pre-Fontaine that ran a mile in under four minutes? They go, we can't do it. It can't be done. It cannot be. It wasn't, I'm messing that name up. can't run a mile in less than four minutes. This is obviously a long time ago.

He did it. And then everybody goes, oh, shoot. And then what happened? Everybody did it. But it's nice to live on the idea that you can't do it. Elon goes to the moon. We got to get that.

We got to. It isn't interesting when somebody succeeds like that. It does hold a mirror up to you a little bit, maybe. I find it success is viewed differently in Australia to hear. In Australia, we call it Tall Poppy Syndrome. If someone gets too high, too big for their britches, you want to cut them down. In America, I don't know, my experience has been people really respect success.

But still, there's that phenomena. What was it like coming off alcohol, can I ask? And do you mind if I ask, do you drink now? I know. I've been sober for November 6th. still be six years. Wow. Did you ever think that was possible?

70 years ago? No, dude. No. I remember going into the, now I didn't really drink all my childhood growing up. I think I just got very, like, popular kind of overnight. I didn't quite know. I didn't have, I wasn't an old adult enough to find my way through that.

Just overnight, you go through the airport. Who would possibly be prepared for that? I remember going to an A.A. meeting either with somebody? I can't remember. I'm sitting in the back. Have you ever been to a meeting? You have like, at the end of every meeting, you have a chip ceremony where you go, anybody one month sober, you stand up and you cheer for them, two months, three months, five months, one year, two years, three years, five years. And I remember this guy got up and was like, was like six months sober. And I had heard his story in the meeting, like I was, you know, homeless or I would get kicked, my wife kicked me out of the house. And I go, there is no way. There is no way that that, and all the people in the, everybody in there, I've been sitting here like, no way. It just seemed unimaginable. Meaning no way they are actually being honest or that you can do it.

No, they were being honest. But they, that seems unbelievable. Yeah. They were being honest, but I go, there's, how, how? Every time I felt any kind of sadness, pain, uncomfortability, alcohol would resolve it. Yeah. And in, I don't, depends on how deep you are in, I don't know, it's like if you're on your same drinking environment and you're like, you know, shame-based behavior. change medically. This is not spiritual. Only would last for 48 hours. Explain that.

Shame-based. A, I got drunk last night. I'm quitting. Cigarettes. I'm quit. Like being, I'm bad. I'm ashamed. I need to make a change. Shame-based behavior change. This is not even in the Bible. In the Christian, this is medical. I mean, I know it's true for my own life. Forty-eight hours. I remember times in my life with all sincerity and tremendous enthusiasm, saying, I will never do that again. Chorus, everybody. Yeah. And then you find yourself going back to it.

And I, in, when I, I think if you stay in your current environment, staying at your same house, it depends on how deep you are, obviously. If you don't, you're like, I'm going to quit Oreos. And you have them every night and you're like, it's too strong. Your brain is, it's, don't disrespect it in a way that you're like, Like you have the willpower. Well, you never have to this point. Why, if you're like, this is the difference.

It's like, now I'm going to, I'm going to lift, I'm going to bench 300 pounds. What planet? Do you ever work out before? No. No, but I'm going to do it with sheer willpower. Yeah. And I think that, I think when you go and went into treatment,

uh, they had to physically take it away. I mean, I mean, I guess I could have left. I'm an adult. There weren't, it wasn't prison, but there was like, and then you get more and more, oh, you can go to, you can drive your car, but we're still going to, you know, breathalize you, and we're still going to. And then you're like, oh, you can go home for the weekend.

You get more and more, we used to be able to go to restaurants, but you can't sit at the bar. When we were first, like, very new in our sobriety. You say we. Is there friends of yours? Yeah, when you're at in the rehab, in the community, you can go there, but maybe let's not, they wouldn't let you go to a bar.

It probably wouldn't. You know what I'm saying? So they kind of let you... They loosen the reins gradually. As they see fit... That's what rehab is. As they see... And sometimes you're 45 days in rehab.

You're like, I'm ready to go home. And they're like, no, you're not. You're going to go back. You're going to relapse, for sure. And, I mean, there's a guy... For sure. There's a guy in rehab that was addicted to cocaine. I'm not a drug guy, but he was so...

like on a all the time wanting to you know kind of wanting to go to the tanning bed wanted to get tattoos like just to get a little bit of uh does that make sense yeah like a little bit of a rise or a rush because and and and he would go to spin class a bunch those are the three things that he was kind of like you probably shouldn't be doing it but it's not in the rulebook of don't do it you know tanning beds they didn't put that one in yet no they didn't they're like I don't even know you could get addicted to that or yeah and I remember we're driving he was he was uncovering all these like steep sadnesses from his childhood. You know, his parents like, his parents had like emancipated him from his family.

Like he was so, you know, like a lot of neglect, a lot of abandonment. And we were driving home one night. And he goes, gosh, dude, all this. I mean, he's been there four months. He goes, all this pain, all this real present, current pain. I could take it away in 15 seconds, stopping at a gas station. And he knows, if you do cocaine, you know how to get cocaine. I don't know.

But he goes, and every time I just, alcohol didn't hold me that seriously. Does that make sense? I don't want to be like the voice of, I am sober, but it wasn't, I noticed in treatment, it was gripping, some addictions were gripping people harder than they were me. Maybe I was like, well, I got my little, I got myself off course here a little bit, but yeah, they were like, you can't have alcohol, I go, all right, okay. You know, and then, and then, um, what was harder, the alcohol or the phone? Well, I mean, I'm sober from alcohol. I'm not sober from the phone.

But I mean, you said they took the phone away from you for that time. What was the, no, it's the difficult or was you, were you grateful to have that reprieve from the? Yeah, I wish I could get rid of it now. Yeah. Yeah, you find, I mean, I sometimes I write jokes. When I write jokes, I'm looking for a punchline. I'm looking for a way to connect these two ideas. I'm sitting in uncomfortability. And I'll just grab my phone.

Yes. Because you're like, this is, and I'm sure people that wrote books in the 1800s would sit for weeks in just uncomfortability. So, I got it. Well, even things, you go to the coffee shop, you're in line, you feel awkward, you pull out your phone. It's both the cause and the cure. But it's based.

No, it's both the, yeah. In a way, it's a cure, right? Because you actually do feel less anxious. If you're in elevating with people, you don't talk, it's weird. You pull out your phone, you feel better. But it ends up causing more. Yeah, exactly. I was in the airport, we were on the tarmac delayed or whatever,

and I was on my phone just kind of being pacified. My phone ran out of battery. And I was like, we got to get. I was like, what are we doing on this flight immediately? Yeah. Because that thing, well, check this out. I was going to go work out today. That's funny.

Check this out. I was going to go work out today. And I didn't because I didn't have my headphones. What's the point? I mean, that's a sweet. How can I possibly work out? What am I going to clean my kitchen? I don't have a podcast to listen to.

I'm just going to sit here with my thoughts. Yeah. No. Yeah, I don't know what. If you, if you're sitting in the airport in the line to get on the flight and you pull out your phone, well you're well like uh we played uh one of the best golf courses in america i actually not a lot to talk about it on a podcast but the most prestigious golf course in america okay you're not allowed to post about playing there we're talking about playing there but when we were there

i love playing golf and i was with nate i didn't want to pull out my phone it was all you know what saying it was oh yeah it was unbelievable but what what this thing is offering to you especially in times of discomfort or even discomfort awkwardness i go that's a better alternative yeah then then i mean that's a better alternative than dating for a lot of people i don't think in the end it is but you just i'd rather sit at home on my phone see what's going on and versus going out and real life, which is terrifying, but. But you never feel good after. You feel exhausted and overwhelmed and stuffed

with information and novelty. You're like, oh, gosh, I need a break. And so you say it's like that 48-hour thing, you just said, you need a break. And then two minutes later, you pick up the phone again. Or you, yeah. Or you put them, okay, you delete the app, you put it on the third page,

you put it in a folder. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's doing all these kind of things. Yeah, they go. But again, it's disrespectful to your brain. Your brain is not, it will find its way back. Yeah. I don't know if that's, it makes all the sense in the world.

Everybody is feeling this right now who's mildly self-aware. And they go, we got to get rid of this thing. I think, I said on my podcast that I think it, I have tremendous hope. Yeah. I just don't like those, my people that are like doom and gloom everything's over. The world's coming to an end. I go, I think people will soon, sooner or rather than later, look at cell phones like we used to look at cigarettes.

My friend created a program called Shift. Okay. And when he told me he did this, I thought, okay, I get it. Dude, I've tried all these things. Putting your phone in a block or something like that. I've tried brick. I've tried OPL. I've tried, it doesn't.

There's always a workaround. And I will always use that workaround. He's like, I promise there isn't. I didn't know who this guy was. A friend told me about him. He drove to the studio right here, and he showed me, and it works. So I have my phone shifted, and I cannot access the internet. And I've given it to really people who are like, I know how to do it, and they can't.

And it's been great for me. So just driving to the studio today, prayed the rosary, had nothing to do, pick my nose. Sure, go for it. But taking away that option is really good. I think admitting that you do not actually have the kind of self-control that you think you have is the first step. you know what do you what do you yeah it's so like it's so like you know you're doing cocaine you're sneaking around to the back of the dumpster to you know meet a guy named gerald that you're got or like the addiction seemed um more consequential yeah you know what I'm saying

this is very like it's like people don't smell it on your breath yeah it's like in the was it at the screw tape letters that or the the the the C.S. Lewis they're just let's just get them to be preoccupied. Yeah, distracted, comfortably. Yeah, where is that? It's one of those CS Lewis books. I'm sure it is. I remember once I went and gave a talk somewhere,

I went back to my hotel room, I'm sitting on the bed, and I start watching the office because it's comforting. And then I'm on another page on Twitter. So I'm not watching, I'm listening to the office, scrolling through Twitter, and then someone text me. And so I'm texting while listening to the office while looking at it. You're gone, brother. And I just was exhausted.

It's just a great way to exhaust yourself. So there's a real difference, I think, between, obviously, dissociation and recreation. Like, one recreates you, the other just leaves you more frazzled and disintegrated. Yeah, I think disassociation is, there is a place for it. As long as you're being honest with you, like, hey, I'm going to go watch a trash TV show for 30 minutes. I've had a long day with the kids. This makes me feel like, within reason. I'd call that recreation.

Yeah, there you go. I think a lot of, in religion especially, is like, you can't be a human. You're like, you're tired, read Shakespeare, idiot. That can be your rest. Yeah, you're like, hey, I'm gonna, these, novels or whatever, they're like silly.

But I just feel, I'm gonna for 30 minutes. Now, if you're not abandoning your family and you're gonna do it for an hour and you come back and then I'm gonna cook dinner and then we're gonna play with you, like, fine. Yes. I think a lot of has to do with intentionality. Yeah, I come home, I don't, I'm not into video games, but I'm fine if I were.

I'm going to spend half hour play this video game and then I'm going to do X, Y, and C. That's very different to like losing yourself in things because you feel uncomfortable. And if you go, hey, you know, spouse, significant other, hey, it seems like you might be getting a little over leveraged here in these video games to be like, all right. You know what I'm saying? You can go to hell. Yeah, or yeah, yeah, yeah. But like someone says, hey, the Instagram, it's probably not, it's probably feeding your ego more than it,

and you're like, yeah, that's probably true. You want to see if you can go, you know, let's, that when we get home until the work in the morning, you want to see if we can go without it, maybe just see if it's, you're like, yeah, let's do that. Yeah. The problem is with the phone, there's always a legitimate, there's always a seemingly legitimate reason to be on it.

You can't get anywhere without it. What are you doing? Yeah. I'm just checking an email. Like everything you say sound. No one ever says, scrolling. There's always, I'm just texting this guy back. For work also. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, or GPS, you got to, you're like, I'm going to go

without it. How are you going to get any, how are you going to, your credit cards are on there? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Well, again, I want to tell, I don't even remember the website, and I'm not making, I'm not getting paid to do this, but look up shift because it shifts all the distracting apps and it leaves you with Uber, leaves you with your bank apps. Oh, you can put them all kind of in there. Yeah, it's, you can, I can use all those, but I just can't use any social media there's no web browser but they're all the all the all the all the socials have like uh uh limits like you know they have like instagram has like an hour like you can set a limit yeah but we're going to get around it is what i'm saying we're shift yeah we cannot get around it it's like

you're like hey i'll give it to you i'll ask him he'll give you a code it'll be for free i don't have a problem what do you think i need you you have a problem yeah say same with gambling they're like hey here's all the gambling but one 800 gambler call it, if you need, you're like, they're cigarettes. Hey, this is going to cause cancer. Yeah. It's bigger than the, you know what I'm saying? No, I don't really.

The dopamine is bigger than the number on the bottom of the end. So you go, why would you? Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't smoke cigarettes. Yes. The only. It's a gigantic sign on there that says, yeah, I know. On the front.

And you go to Europe and Australia and you've just got people rotting, their flesh is rotting. And this is what will happen to you. Like, don't care. Don't care, dude. And it's still like, hey, Bill Clinton, And if this is in the Oval Office, this don't care. Yeah. But I didn't either.

When I was in the darkest place, you go, especially if you're in pain. Yes, of course. And you go, this is going to cause cancer. This is going to hurt your family. This is going to jeopardize your career. Don't care. Yep. Don't care.

It's like a little, it's disingenuous to like the, what? Because you're not acting rationally at that moment when you're engaging in something. So to try to use rationality on someone who's choosing to be irrational or is in an irrational state. That's why I've always said what's interesting

is not why people jerk off and look at porn. That's the most obvious thing in the world. Of course. That's not interesting to me. What's interesting to me is why anyone would ever go, I don't want to do that.

That's really interesting. Why? Why would you not want to do that? I mean, presumably feels terrific. So why explain to me what you don't want to do that anymore. That's really fast. Someone who's doing drugs or alcohol.

Tell me that. Like, how do you get addicted to meth? Imagine that. Are you kidding? I've never done meth, but I imagine it's terrific. It must be. It must be.

In the sense that it feels good. Yeah, yeah. And that's an escape. My friend, I had James McCann on the show. That's hilarious. He said to me that, yeah, he said he heard that sex while on meth. You do that. Afterwards, sex without meth is like a handshake is what he said to me.

Oh, that's a great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the interesting thing is why anyone would choose to stop. That's fascinating. Even if they, Even if they stumble along the way. So to try to go in a different route. Why?

That's interesting to me. And everybody's... Not why anyone would be drunk. Why is that fascinating? The sin is the least interesting thing about people. And it requires the least... If you're a human, requires the least explanation. Yeah.

You go, oh, that guy got a DUI and slept with his assistant. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's really boring. It sucks. It's very unfortunate. It's evil.

You shouldn't have done it. You don't have to explain it to, I don't think. What? To a human. Yeah. You go, yeah. Not anyone who's lived for five minutes and has a modicum of self-awareness. Well, everybody's like, you would see like a girl, like Broadway is a very popular in Nashville.

Okay. You know, a lot of bars down there, a bunch of young, 20s, third, everybody hanging out there. And the girls wearing, like, out. outfits that are in the whole gamut and a girl going on and putting on a revealing outfit going down to Broadway getting a bunch of attention from men and getting drunk and you were like why would they do that I go what I go everybody like all the different vices that you could choose like if you're in pain you got like a certain set of cards to play and you go every time I played this one Not long term, no. Short term, this solves it. It's a relief. What you mean? It solves it every time. Drug addiction. It solves it every time. Yes. Now, granted, you wake up, feel terrible. You regret. And you'll go down that cycle again because then you're like, I feel bad about it. I'm going to try to be better. I can't be better. Back to the thing. The shame cycle. What do you mean you're, what do you mean you're? Now, if meth, you don't play.

that card, but there's cards that you play. And hopefully your cards aren't as destructive as you get older and have a family. And you go, well, I wouldn't. Why would I not drink now? When that was my only, I go, well, I'll be honest with you. If I'm doing a, I just got so high at the show, at the live show. It's such a dopamine rush and there's thousands of people standing ovation. And I would say now, I would, you know, we have like catering at the venues.

We have like grilled chicken and vegetables and squash and asparagus. If I'm feeling really wound up, I will go to draft kings, put $100 on the West Coast NBA game and door dash some trashy fast food. You know, it's not as destructive. But I, I'm still, you know what I'm saying? Choose your vice kind of thing. Yeah, or, or I don't know, does that make sense or no? Well, here's what I think you were saying. It's like, okay, so I have these cards that are destroying my life.

I don't want to play them, but I don't want to pretend that I'm not in pain and need soothing. So I need an outlet for a legitimate soothing. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider myself to be in pain anymore. Okay. I'm in, uh, irritability. Boredom, irritability, just reality of life.

maybe I don't know what I'm going to do I'm stuck on a tour bus and a loading dock in Omaha, Nebraska. My fiance is not here. I'm in the back of the bus. It's what am I? Is what you're saying? You're going to go home and pray or something.

You're like, I just need a. If I don't, my, the demons are not screaming in me as loudly. Yeah. They still whisper to me. yeah and now maybe i'll scroll on the internet to see what people said about the show yeah and and it will pacify me a hundred dollars on the late NBA game will pacify me it would be exciting

it's fun to watch to see if your projection about the game was true and then you might win 150 dollars and then it's not going to ruin my family i'm right and it's not a sin it's a legitimate outlet yeah well i think gambling might be but we don't think that's a Become Catholic. Another argument for why you should become Catholic. No, I should say it's not a sin provided that you're doing it. Yeah, and your kids are, the kids have school clothes. All of that.

All of that. Yes, you go, I think that's the part of maybe religion that, at least in the tradition that I grew up for, doesn't quite have room for. That this guy is, this guy's brand new to your church. and then he's smoking cigarettes outside. You're like, well, that's a little bit. Yeah, let him go. Yeah, he's doing, he doesn't, he's fine.

He's on his way. By the way, you're on your way too. Yeah. And you know what I'm saying? Or like, hey, so you didn't, you didn't look at porn, but you might have glanced at that girl in the airport. Where, what are your... And then glanced again, and then glanced again.

Yeah, or maybe, like, yeah. What I was funny. I don't know where, yeah. I'm a big cigar smoker. okay and i'm certainly not trying to encourage anyone else to do it if they don't want to do it i mean i think it's terrific but you know the the outrage i received from some people you know but they're eating cake and they're drinking coke and yeah yeah you know it's pointing at somebody else's vice maybe so i can feel better where do you i asked my one of my buddies this last week

i go where do you go or where do you want to go when your wife is maybe upset with you. And it's like, hey, it's $400 for the soccer cleats or your son lost this cleat. Or, you know what I'm saying? Or, dude, we lost our, we lost our 180,000 followers' Instagram page. We lost it last week for our podcast. We got it back this week.

What happened? Instagram just goes, nope. Why? They have a reason? They just say community guidelines. And you just get this email. I didn't know people were still doing that. thought that era was over.

I thought it was too. It's back. I think they just reviewed it. And then they're go, they, but you go, so. We're going to leave this podcast. Some. I mean, I got a thousand of them a day. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the video guy can't edit.

He doesn't have time. Some. Triction. Every, when you leave this podcast, every is going to be, where do you want to, go. And if the friction is bigger, I don't want to go to a bar. I don't want to, you know, I want to, I go, I ask my buddy, I go, where do you go? He said he wants to go. He wants to be on his phone. He wants to be in private and be on his phone and look up stuff. He shouldn't look at us. What an honest answer. Love honesty. But you don't go, or somebody doesn't go there,

but they go, dude, you know what I want to do? They just ate Cine a bun and. Or I want to go. Dude, somebody I know a lot of people that at their home it's a kids don't especially for men kids don't especially love them at the current stage they're alive the wife is kind of at work you're a god yes everybody do I succeed I gravitate to where I succeed you go I'm going to spend a couple more hours at the office tonight because I need to I don't I obviously yeah we hate failing the title of this podcast obviously dude Dude, there's a guy in treatment that he was, he was very sad from his childhood. He was an ER doctor at three different hospitals in Texas.

And he was like, home life was a disaster. When he pulls into that parking lot, they got a sign. It says, here's your spot. He would walk, people would, he would be at his home. If you don't come up here, this guy is going to die. he's an ER doctor he's the only one in town if you don't get here yeah you want you pull in people put gloves on on you're like never happen to me never happened to me never done that he's like he's like he was telling his story in treatment he's like I feel like a god I go you kind

of are yeah and then you go if you don't come here this person is going to die and his home life was very tumultuous. He said he would take shots. He would take shots of vodka to do the surgeries. He was shaking so much because he never had any time off because he felt bad when he was off. And he wanted to be, but he said he was going to, it was his son's birthday on Sunday

and he was going to shoot himself in his office on Monday. He was going to kill himself. Oh, bless him. And the Lord or whatever you call it, intervened and he got to treatment and he's one of my best friends now. Truthly is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith with clarity and confidence. Whether you're navigating a tough conversation, deepening your understanding or looking for daily spiritual guidance, Truthly is your companion on the journey.

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Truthly is transforming the way we learn, share, and live our faith. One question, one course, and one prayer at a time. Start your seven-day free trial today. Download Truthly on the app store. He couldn't stop. And also, he couldn't, he doesn't imagine a future where that's what suicide is. the current situation is untenable and also there's no hope so if you're a prisoner of war but you're like in the next month i think the boat is coming you can endure unending amount of abuse

tragedy sadness you're like but the the boat i i promise they said they were or you know what I'm saying, any kind of, but there's, and then you go, there's no, there's no shot. There is no hope that you should, then outside of a relationship with Christ, you wild to say, but you should kill yourself without the, it's at least rational, isn't it? If there's no hope and there is no God and the current situation, and my pain is significantly greater than my pleasure and future, then it seems like a rational thing would be to end that, end that life. We don't want you to do that.

We don't want you to do that. And hope, that's like my favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption. He goes, well, hope is the greatest. That's all I had in here. It's all I had in here is hope. And if you remove that from somebody, I don't want to go, I don't want to drive 150 miles an hour down the interstate. Well, I want to be alive.

I want to get married. I want to keep doing comedy. I enjoy meals with friends. And I enjoy the thing. I enjoy the everything about it. I don't want to, I don't want to self-harm. I like to do it. I want to be around to have grandkids.

I want to. But if you didn't have that, you go, why would somebody bring a gun into school? Well, they don't. they're currents they don't have any if you take that away from people if you don't if you're looking at your bills and you go all right these are i'm a single mom of two i'm working at this if i do some math here i'm never this ship is not riding itself yeah and i think a lot of people are a lot of people are in that scenario now you'll know better than me because you're a product So you're probably better at scripture. I think it's Jeremiah chapter two, if it's not apologies. But God says to Jeremiah, my people have committed two evils.

They have abandoned me the source of living waters. And they have built for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water. And to me, that's what these false refuges are. When we find ourselves in pain and we go to these different things, whether it be popularity or sexual pleasure or drunkenness, popularity. But they don't work. They don't work. And in my life, the honest, most honest thing I know how to say is when I can sit before the loving gaze of our all merciful God, then I can sort of drop the shoulders and relax and exist in joy. Yeah. But it's a,

it's a hard place to remain in because I'm an idiot and because I'm wounded by sin and I keep going to my broken systems, frustrated that they don't work. And if he, if he's watching you or whatever, Christ or is, is sees you in the going into the bar or let's say getting on social media or whatever you, whatever vice you want to go pursue, maybe the short term or the long term, I don't think God I think he goes man that's a bummer I got a better plan for him unfortunately he can't see it right now

this is the card he knows how to play I'm not mad at him there's consequences and I and I'm sad I forget who it was who says God sees sin as pain in us yeah yeah he's not he goes man that's a bummer I wish

I wish I wish he could see my kind of like parent in a lot of ways. I wish he's not, he's not. I mean, this is the number one analogy he uses, right? And as a father, yeah, yeah. You know, if my son, yeah, if my son believed that he had to act well so I would like him, that would break my heart. I want him to act well because acting well is how you live the good life and be happy and I want you to be happy. Yeah, and it's an easy way, what do you think of maybe like, for religion, maybe at least organized in a way to, to

control behavior that where like where do the god is angry at you i know you guys you guys have got a lot of guilt so do we and so your tradition in mind is like where where did like dude i wasn't i was a good kid i never i mean our christian school we weren't like somehow we got the idea that we were like troublesome you know like teenagers you're like did we were on paper great okay but But there's a lot of, you know what I mean, it's a little bit of, I think it's, I mean, it's the easiest thing to do. I have four children who I love dearly, but sometimes you know that shaming that child will stop that behavior quicker than a deep loving interaction with that. You said it, brother. And it's not that you, and it will stop it, by the way. Exactly. That's what's so dangerous.

And it's not that you necessarily think it through. I'm going to shame them right now. It's this that you reflexively do the thing that quickly stifles the thing you don't want to be done. But how did you learn? Somebody taught you. What? Or where did you learn shame would stop the behavior? You know that. Yeah, I know that, I don't know, through millions of interactions with other human beings throughout my life. They go, oh, this is not. But I've seen the way, you know, like, I remember, like, yeah, I remember doing things as a kid and my parents being deeply ashamed of things. And that didn't help me. Yeah. All it did was drive the behavior you're underground.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have one of my children, I'll keep it very generic for their sake. They were very young and they were stealing from me. And there was something wrong with them. And I'm like, what's going on with this person, this child? We are. And I laid down with this child and I kept saying, what's going on?

What's going on? Nothing, everything's fine, everything's fine. We did that for about seven or eight minutes until this child broke in my arms and told me, I just love, I was, oh, my darling, I love it. Darling, I love you. I love you. I said to this child, there's nothing you could ever do that could make me love you less. You could try, but you would fail. Yeah. Don't ever do that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's Christ with the woman caught in adultery, right? There's nobody here condemn you.

Neither do I condemn you. Look around. Go sin no more. It's those, it's the love and truth. It's the kindness and truth married together. It's not niceness. Like, hey, you be you and do what makes you happy it's i don't condemn you go and sin no more it's the yeah truth and i like that idea of of what you said a second ago of like lowering your shoulders oh you know like you come just drop him a bit take a breath i think well i think that's what if it's done it's you feel safe if it's done well i think that in a lot of ways that's the uh i was in prayer the other morning it was several months ago actually it wasn't the other morning i just say the other morning because it's easier and i was talking to our lord

and I was trying to hear our Lord speak to me. And I heard our father say to me and it was wild and it came from nowhere and I don't ever. I heard our father say to me, I'm really proud of you. I love you. You're doing a good job.

Everything in me wanted to fight him for saying that. I hated that. And that's wild. You got to fix this, you got to do this. You got to look at this area that you're not doing great. You would think that I would want to hear that.

And obviously the deepest part of me does want to hear that. that. But I was like, no, I could make a compelling case where you're wrong about this. But that reaction is more interesting to me than the dialogue coming from our Lord that I believe I received. Yeah. What was that? Because I remember saying to my friend who's far advanced in the faith, I said, I think maybe I just want to hear that. And so I may pretend that the Lord said that to me. And he's like, I don't know if you want to hear that because we know each other well and you don't speak to yourself like that. I thought that's true. Never. I don't. But we got to do the, we got

of the myriad of to-do list but the idea that's almost I always compared to like that you know in Home Alone you've seen that movie where Kevin McAllister

goes and sits in the church and the guys there kind of older grandfather figuring and he's just like my parents are I don't know what to do the guys are coming tomorrow

all the and he just goes and he goes hey you're he gonna be all right and I think that's what Sunday morning is I think for a lot of for granted the church is run by humans and they fail and they mess up but it is it is

you go in there if the church is healthy and in any kind of i mean an ounce of one percent health and you could uh yeah you can feel that a little yeah i don't even know what that is i mean i do know what that is assurance we and what we want to is not to be justified in our perversions and sins because we know what that's like too I mean that might be like your buddies hey it's fine you're like that's a cheap pat on the shoulder

that I don't want what I want is to be loved as I am and too much to be left that way that's what I want and he goes hey if I might have to because what happened to me I might have to break I can't let I mean dude

I think about all the time about my scenario it was obviously very I mean dude I'm about to get married come on that's crazy dude that's great if you if you just told me that in 2019 that's great that is wild to me that you're to be sober and you're like gosh how would you have responded in 2019 if no shot dude no if no shot and I'm about to be on the 10th night show and your comedy career is going to be, I go,

granted, it's been a lot of hard work and a lot of honest conversations and a lot of wreckage to kind of sort through maybe, but if you go, there is no way. But what if that happened, I'm 41 now, that happened now, that happened now I was 35. What about if he'd have let you go to 55 or 60 or, yeah, I don't know, I, when I was in that, I would have, oh, you're going to learn a lesson from this. I would have been pissed that if somebody would have told me that. You know what I'm saying? I'm just thinking of someone listening to this and it'd be like, oh, it's going to be, it's going to be helpful to you're like, okay, did well.

Like, I have to ask a guy if I can have some sherbert. I don't think this is not a good plan. But I, I don't, I don't. Yeah. It does appear to be an act of mercy. Reliant K, remember that band? Yeah, of course. That is that excellent line.

You said, I know this will hurt, but if I don't break your heart, things will just get worse. And everyone went, ah. Yeah, that's one of our bands, dude. You can take them? Oh, yeah, we pick and choose. You come over to us when we need something.

That's right. Whenever you look cool, William Lane Craig is with us. When you need some art, you're like, Let me get one of those guys doing over there. Man, what a journey, dude. I, I, in the, in the, the, the darkest, I feel like maybe when I was in there, when I was in the treatment and I was like, I think after, well, first of all, my family was a very support. of me and they were like and that kind of helped me at the beginning but i remember about maybe a month in i talked to my agent who i thought my i thought i never do stand-up comedy again i thought i was like oh

i never and then he goes hey um this might be inappropriate but uh there's like a significant amount of offers on the table for you to when you're ready that these venues want to want to book you and i go he shocked what yeah and i immediately this so i my buddies will will uh say i immediately hey let's get these assignments done hey we got to go we're gonna go for a while hey let's i was very very motivated to submit myself to the process because i saw a way out a way away if i hope okay you go if i and granted i always had hope as a human i could always my family still love me but as a professional Hey, if I can stay sober, if I can, I would everybody would say that if you can, if you can remain on the track, you can be able to do the thing that you love for as long as you want.

And I immediately, I had hope and reach, I was like, man, I didn't, I thought this thing was burned at the ground and it sounds like I can, and the guy, I told you about the guy at the cocaine, he, after we get out of treatment, everybody's kind of, of in a group text together and he was a lawyer okay so he was supposed to say he they got his he got his law license uh suspended because he's doing cocaine in the in the in the trials like it was he was a wild addicts he got way out of control they suspended his license hey if you can stay sober we will for a year we'll give you your license back okay so he was sober for six months we're all checking in with each other on the group text, he stops responding. And if you know anything about addiction or

literally being a human, if you stop responding, I've been around enough. I go, and everybody also did. And they go, has anybody heard from him? Does anybody heard from him? No, no, no. And he relapsed, not on cocaine, on alcohol. And he went back into check. with his service provider, the license, the bureau, the board, or whatever, and they said, because you relapsed, you will never be able to get your license again. And he killed himself.

God bless him. I'm so sorry to hear that. So... So sorry for his family. In a... Again, again, that was an immediate decision, but you go, I don't see. how this now obviously you're going to go

40 is going to go work at Walger I mean he was also at the top money face was on all the billboards people knew him in town to go into a restaurant you got a table at the small town but you're so what are you going to tell him to

go work at CVS it was too is that makes sense yes it was too it was too because no no jarring yeah too and there's there would be debate in the recovery community about all right as someone that's in you got a you got you have to have a I don't care if it's worth suspending it for another five years there has to be away and every I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast and if you're a human at any level you'd be like yeah there's no way forward there's no way

galley what what advice do you give to those who are watching who are stuck in something and they hate themselves they they love this thing that eases their pain and they hate that they love this thing and they don't know how to stop loving the thing that they hate well like i i get a little bit apprehensive because i'm given advice because I was caught. Now on the other side, I go, yeah, just go tell your wife, just go tell your boss, just go tell, just be, but I didn't. My world crashed down and I was able to make good choices from there

and kind of follow the right path. But you know what I'm saying? I go, there's a lot of people that are like prominent in Christian celebrity or music or whatever that I know have this gigantic vice or demon that no one else knows about and it's horrible to live like that.

But also, I wasn't willing to come forward either. Does that make sense? I don't know if I could trick. Obviously, it's better over here. It's way better over here, but I didn't have the courage to be on this side to say, this is what you should do.

I feel like for me would be a little tricky. Do you have any advice? That's good. No, I would say that something's can only be healed by the antiseptic light of truth. And we might be of the opinion that if we keep burying the thing, then we'll be safe. But they find a way of poking through. So, maybe I got one piece of advice. Okay. And if this is something, I remember they'd be like, well, just, just write it down. and then burn it. It's like, I haven't talked to a therapist,

I can't even talk to a therapist about this. It might be illegal. It might be, I can't, a therapist don't care, and they've heard everything in it, but you think your thing is. This is why we have confession. Yeah.

I'm not trying to make a cheap point there. I'm just saying it is actually really beautiful. I've said this, I've said this about Catholicism. Yeah. I think I said that on our podcast. I go, I think what y'all have gotten right is like, oh, you're going to sit in there and talk to a guy. he might recognize your voice.

If it's a small community, I go, but that does, there's a path, but that's the, I cannot believe I'm verbalizing this out loud. Yeah. It's a start. And if you can't get into a confessional, write it down and burn it.

As if you can't, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's all in here. And then if you, then you get a trusted, a friend before you might be able to, to confess it to the people that you could be have consequences from you go all right well i'll tell my buddy and at least he can shoulder this with me a little bit i don't know where the path

forward is for me in terms of reconciliation or maybe jail time or even if it's not even that i go hey dude i think i might be uh using draft kings a little too much your buddy's probably going to go same Or I don't use draft kings, but I need to do, I need to watch my fast food. I think every, there's no seeing under the sun that is like, wait, wait, what? And, you know, my experience, my close friends, if they came to me and said anything, I would love them. If they said, I murdered an old woman last night, I'd be like, okay, I'm sorry, I thought you said you murdered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'd want, you know, I'd want justice or what have you.

but I mean, nothing, my friends could say could make me love, well, I don't know, maybe if it was personal and they killed my child. Yeah, yeah, all right. Okay, but I think we understand the point I'm trying to make. It doesn't have to be completely. But the point, my point is though, but it's funny because those things about me, I think,

make me unlovable. When I look at other people who I love and go, no, that actually makes you more lovable when you bear your heart, when you kind of go. I would never, yeah, dude, And every time in, every time in, ever, I would imagine not too many people listen to this pod have ever been to rehab, but you sit in there. I'm sure many, I'm sure, is, you sit in there and you come tell your story.

And then you're like, man, you will not believe. And then they go, and then you start hearing the guy behind you that he checks in two days after you. You're like, I just got here. He's after. And then you hear his story, you go. And the therapist go, yeah, I bet you are probably this happened in your childhood. And now you respond by doing it this way.

And then they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, to, to, to, yeah, do, I guess to, to, to feel like yours is different or unique. And that's the big part, I think, of spiritual warfare, hey, Satan is called the accuser of our brethren. Yeah. The Holy Spirit is called the paraclete, which they tell me as a word, which means, defense attorney. But I think what happens when you forget the demonic, you start attributing to God with what he's not saying. Yeah, where did you hear that?

Where did it, where's that you're, yeah, like, I don't want to take credit for this, but I think, I, I think Stephen Ferdick said it, who's a, who's a very popular evangelical. He's like, if the, if the devil could do all the things he's whispering to you he would have done it you're you should he would have done it he can't you know what saying all the things that he whispers to you all day that you're not good that you're unworthy you shouldn't start a business you like if the devil comes to steal kill and destroy and his goal is

ultimately your death and it'll just beat you like it that's his that's his goal for you And where did you, where did you, where did you hear that? It's like going in the garden, who told you? Who told you that? Who told you were naked? Hey, I'm not going to, I'm not going to start this business. I'm not going to ask that girl out. I'm not going to risk, you can't, you can't, well, no one said that.

No human said that. If I post this video, everybody's going to think you're a loser, everybody. where what is the origin of that or you trace it all the way back to you're like no one ever said that nobody said that you're a beautiful man i'm glad you exist um what's it like traveling all the time are you tired and now you're engaged what does life look like how does how does a comedian live a sustainable life well i mean i've been i'm starting the tour next week but i've been off since May. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, so I think some people you see like, you know, 40 tour dates. Where can people, just real quick, so we don't miss this point, where can people find your tour dates for this upcoming tour? Let's see, your website. Jambi Christ on all socials.

I'm Jambi Christ everywhere. So you get, yeah. We're starting to 40, 40, 40 dates in this fall. But then again, I always try to be like, all right, a regular person who works nine to five, they got five tour dates. a week for eight hours there your fall schedule would look like money tuesday wednesday wednesday thursday friday yeah like i'll go out on on friday morning i'll fly out

i will take the bus home and i'll be back on sunday night the following sunday not no yeah two days i go friday saturday sunday and whether yeah that's great if it's within 10 hours of nashville tennessee the bus will drive and we'd be home on monday that's nice and do you will you travel with your wife yeah well we're not married i mean when you're married yeah that's right when you're married will you try to catch me brother uh no uh she comes on the bus sometimes nice i mean there's a bus it has like 12 bunks in it yeah and then where there's like the two other comics who are like my best buddies my video guy merge guy tour manager it's a pretty good time out there what bugs you about other comics when you see them do this on stage

oh man not everything what do you mean yeah uh there's like Like a, like, uh, there's some, there's some ways to get, uh, cheap laughs. Okay. There you go. If you're not doing well, you kind of reach back for these, uh, it kind of like, uh, street jokes or maybe jokes that if you haven't, you haven't totally propel, people that don't work hard, bug me. Mm.

But I mean, you get that sense because it's not, what, tight, not refined? Maybe you could see if you go, if you come out with a guy and then, and then a, uh, four months later he comes back out with the end's the same uh-huh he go what would you rather someone funny don't lie would you rather someone funnier than you to open oh or less funny funnier why that's a big that's a big uh talking point in comedy okay i think my name's on the ticket everybody's coming to say i'm confident enough in my even if the opener gets a standing ovation yes uh i think if you're if you're

right if you're not so true if you're not if your name's not like you could be Jerry Seinfeld if you bombed he wouldn't bomb but you would be still that's who we came to see exactly no that's a really that's a really if you're not if you're at the local there's the there's a comedy zone here in jacksville you probably never been to it yeah there's a comedy zone which is a chain of uh comedy club there's one here you might just be if you're local at the Jacksonville Comedy Zone, people are just coming out to see comedy. They don't know you.

They just want to see some comedy. So if you're in that position, you do not want to be buried by the feature. That happened to me one time, I was the feature and the headliner, and we were doing a, we were doing a cruise ship. So, and there is no choice to go,

at 7 o'clock, this is the entertainment. I buried this guy. I was a young comic. What does that mean? I buried him, meaning I crushed him. He couldn't follow me. I see. He was after you.

Yeah, he was the headliner after me. No one knew who either one of us were. Oh, right. Yes, yes. So no one's coming to see him. No one's coming to see me either. Yeah. They're just coming to see comedy.

And everybody's going, that first guy was funnier. And now we're stuck on a ship. It's funny you said, that's so funny. It's nowhere to go. And I'm thinking of this from the person coming to see the show's perspective. And I think you're exactly right. I went to see a particular comedian. and we won't say who, and I know them.

And the person who was on before, oh my goodness, this man was so funny. Oh, yeah. The person I came to see got up. Wasn't that funny. But I had a great time. My time has already been well spent. I drove here.

I enjoyed it. And I laughed my butt off. I don't care who I laughed at. And the second person wasn't bad. And I was excited to see them. So I wasn't disappointed. I think a lot of times comics, would bring out, I used to tour, I didn't tour with him,

but he would request, he would come to town. I lived in Colorado Springs at the time. He was dirty, very filthy. He would request, it wasn't that funny. He would request a clean opener. So when he comes on and does the, blue stuff. Yeah, it's stuff, oh my, it's kind of a little bit of a novelty

because that's all he kind of had. So if it's a clean opener, he's talking about, at the time, just whatever I was discussing. I don't remember, but he comes on and is, you know, humping the stool or saying, and then it's all, oh, my God, but if I'm doing it and he does it and he's not funny, he has no. So he would always request a clean opener.

And sometimes people, if they get too funny, they stop having them out because you're like, all right, I don't, I don't put, I don't traditionally feel that way because people spend a lot of money to come to my show. I want the whole thing, the whole two hours, hour, 45 just to be imagine the feeling you're sitting in there for 20 minutes listening to a guy that you find wildly hilarious and the guy that you came to see is coming up that's like the ultimate exactly right it's like the ultimate dopamine versus you're sitting there the guy

and you're sitting there between somebody that's horrible and you kill the mood yeah gosh when is this guy going to get out of here so I can see that you don't want that feel I don't want that yeah what's the best special you've ever seen and who was the who was the not just who's the best comedian but the best special um in let me see what year this was it's called the you're gonna laugh but it's cat williams and it's called the pimp chronicles okay yeah uh in in 2008 uh and i'd seen stand-up comedy brian reagan tim hawkins and and uh i was at a party in Phoenix, Arizona, with my buddy Johnny and our friend Lindsay. And I was walking to the bathroom, and there was these two girls sitting watching

this comedy special. Cat Williams is wearing a green. He's wearing a green tuxedo, and he has his hair. And I go, I just stopped. I go, what is this? And this guy was speaking with so much, it was wildly for, funny, but it's speaking with so much conviction. And I was like, this guy should be a preacher.

He's speaking so. I actually don't know who Kate Williams is. I don't know if I need to for this joke. That's not surprising. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he was speaking with so much conviction. I go, he was like, at the time, 2000, early 2000s in the, he was black comic. He was talking against, against Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson was still alive at the time. And nobody in the black community, I realized this afterwards, not at the moment, that He was going after Michael Jackson and no one in the black community publicly at the time had ever spoken. And everybody was in there like, oh, my. It was like so, I can't believe he's saying this, but it was also so true and so funny that people were just like,

oh, and I go and I go, I wanna do that. I wanna do that. That was the best special, yeah. It was the best special I've ever seen if you watch. It still holds up 20 years later. And he's still selling out arenas because of that special. There's two Australian comedians who I would love you to get familiar with. I wonder if the humor would translate.

There's a guy called Jim Owen, who's from Ireland, has an Irish accent, but grew up in Australia. He's hilarious. Carl, Carl, Barron. Yeah. Is the other. You ever heard of him? No. Oh, he's terrific.

I mean, he gets blue. So I'm not telling everyone to go watch it with their kids right now. But you know what I've found is it's interesting sometimes someone will have this like charming kind of like cutesy persona and then when they go dirty, I don't like that at all. Like if Louis C.K. is dirty. I'm like, yeah, that's what he does. He kind of said that he was that.

Yeah, but when someone and here's here, he would be my, I mean, Norm MacDonald is brilliant and he's the best. And my goodness. When he would get dirty, I'd be like, oh, no, don't do that. Not even because I wouldn't be open to hearing that from someone else. But I didn't want to hear that from you because you've got that kind of like... Like a... Yeah, yeah.

I think... It'd be like if your uncle, who you loved, started telling dirty jokes, like, ah, don't do that. You're like, no, we'll go get them... Yeah, from someone else. Somewhere else. Yeah, there's a certain... What's that?

I mean, there's a certain... If you're ingesting art, I think you... got a guy like country singer is the most popular currently is Morgan Wallen everybody and you go he's he's and you go I Chris Martin same with from Coldplay you go to a show you go I I buy this consciously or subconsciously you go this a great comedian Nate goes he's talking about his his wife and his kids and the bus and you go this this is my kind of guy this is and you see some it's a little bit you see other people the jokes are funny on paper they're going and you go i don't i don't know if i you know what i'm saying you can't connect with it or you can't connect it sometimes people go i do a show in in nebraska and people go do we drove six hours because you're our guy you know we listen to your podcast we've

We watch your specials. You are, I. No pressure. We, yeah, tell me that after the show, not before you go. Some people, you just don't really, you know, with the topic matter, maybe the outfit, maybe they haven't connected with themselves in a way where they can, they're like, I hope.

A lot of times young comics are like, I hope you like this. And Bill Burr at his peak when he was great, so he goes, I don't care what, you need to hear this. this is a truth about society or about you this is I'm standing on this is what you need to and hopefully it's funny enough

to be ingested by everybody and you go I can't believe that's crazy that he said that versus maybe trying to play to them or I hope this is like feels disingenuous somehow you know

the best it's hard to get there as a as a performer I'm sure you deal with that as a on the pod uh what yeah Well, here's where I deal with it. What resonated with me is I used to travel the country speaking on pornography.

Yeah. And I spoke to hundreds of thousands, probably, maybe at least 100,000 to be more accurate of people all around the country on pornography. And I was really good at it. And I would make people laugh appropriately, I hope. But what I would do is... It makes you feel better. It's always coming up on when we talk.

That's part of it. I was like, why are we always talking about this? Panography? Oh, funny. Yeah. I've written books on it. I like... I think I knew that.

I knew that. I like talking about it. But anyway, when I would have to get up in front of like a thousand old boys' school, high school, I would say this to myself. I'm like, I'm going to go and freaking destroy all of them. I'm going to crush. They're going to need to hear this. And it's going to be the best friggin talk they've ever heard,

which isn't a hard bar to clear because I don't know how many porn talks they've heard that were great. And I did it. And I did it because I didn't care what you thought. I love you. You need to hear this. And I'm leaving also. I'm not,

that too. Yeah, that helps. So I don't know. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but it's just like, you need to hear this. And I love you and you need, and so I don't care if you like me.

Shut up. Yeah, I think a comic has to be wildly, uh, narcissistic is the wrong word. Prior to going on on stage. Yeah. There's 3,000 people in there.

You got a kind of like, so far take, I don't know if this is a good at comparison, but like Trump. Yeah. He's like, I have never been. a politician, he's like, I got it.

Yeah. I'm going to talk to the U.S. and you're like, what? An inordinate level of confidence is now required. Yeah, and you kind of be like, well, I think in some ways, you're like, well, you need that level. But as soon as you, as soon as you get off stage, you have to be wildly honest with yourself.

Yeah. Okay. To be like, I got to fix this. I didn't like that setup. I maybe came in too harsh, too early. to be great, to be transcendent. You've got to be, when you walk on, you've got to turn off the critical.

So there's a microphone and you're going to entertain these people for an hour with nothing, no band. Who do you think you are? You can stand up here and make people entertain for an hour. What is that? Yeah, and then as soon as you get off, you're going to flick that switch back on.

You have to be like, I don't deserve to be up there. I've got to be better because there's a lot of comics they were like, I crushed. I go, I get off stage every night. And I go, like at the Tonight Show. Uh-huh. Yeah, what was that when you got off? What was that?

Because to me, it would be like, I don't, I've never done comedy, but to me it would be like, if I got really drunk one night, said a ton of stuff that I thought was terrific. And then I woke up the morning, went, oh, no. I would imagine it was a comic. That's what you feel immediately after. Yeah. You go, okay, we had, we had rehearsed it a thousand times, right?

The closer is, um, I have an argument with my girlfriend about somebody that doing a 180 or a 360. I'm like, no, she turned her life around. She did a 180. She's like, she did a 360. So the closer of the whole performance is I'm stepping up and instead of giving her hug on the curb and she's going to go into her apartment, I go, babe, look, and I do a 360. That's the closer.

That doesn't really get that big of a laugh. It gets a decent laugh. And then the closing joke is, and that's the last time we talked, meaning she was upset. So on the Tonight Show, it went so well. It went so impossibly well that I could never imagine. The meat turning around got a gigantic laugh. And I should have, I'm John Chris. Thank you all so much.

And the closer was, and that's last time we talked. So live, it got less of a laugh because the one before it was so gigantic. So you're asking me the first time on national television, my closer to cut it live. And I got off, and I got off, I go, God, I should have, I should have ended right there. So you should have turned around, waved, and left. I should have turned. It got such a big applause break. I should have just turned

and nobody has ever closed on a non-verbal joke. Uh-huh. But there's almost no way to predict that that was going to happen. Yes. Or to predict that the final line wouldn't have got as big of a lot.

Lie, lie. Well, I knew that, I mean, it's all happening live in front of millions of people. But I got off stage. My point is I got off stage, you got, God, I should have immediately. But you don't be.

beat yourself up because it went great, but you, you, if you don't walk off and go, I got to fix something, I got to tinker with that, I should have come out, I should have maybe, take more of a pause there, I should, if you don't, if you win the football game, 35 to 7, you should at least, you know, we should do, when we do that end around, we should do it a handoff because I think it's going to be available, or we should have gone over the top and the, or whatever. You're losing me, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, you are. Should have, yeah, yeah.

Did you sit down with Jimmy after? Because I tried to find that portion, but I don't think it's on YouTube. So I went to the couch. That's what I mean, yeah. During the commercial break, and then we came back and just signed off in the episode. But we didn't banter.

Oh, there wasn't a conversation. Not on TV. I mean, I sat with him for the commercial break, which is like, nicest guy in the world, you know? Yeah, and he was very, he was like, oh, do I do that with my wife too all the time? And we talked about Shakira,

because Shakira's been a guest on the tonight. So like, she's like, dude, if Shakira heard that joke, she would, she would think was hilarious. Would you get a number? Were you conversing with the crowd during the TV break, or was it just the two of you kind of? Not with the crowd, but Jimmy, I'm, it's my first time ever on TV. Jimmy during the commercial break before, Jimmy comes out to the crowd. He goes, hey, we got a comedian coming up next. It's very first time he's probably a little nervous.

Oh, that's nice. make his friends are here like my uh people on our staff and my uh girlfriend at the time was there and still like his friends are in the back make him feel welcome and it was so that's nice literally the greatest favor that anyone can do for to hype you up and i and he was like telling these like stupid jokes on the commercial break that were killing and i was like oh this crowd was so warm they were ready that he did that that's nice didn't i didn't i didn't That's so, that's, you don't have any idea how kind that is. Okay.

To care enough to love stand-up. I mean, Tonight Show for a musician is not what it is for a comedian. That's the top. Okay. Or for a guest, if you're on a movie star to get, that's not the stand-up on the Tonight Show. That's right. All the way back to the Johnny Carson Days, this is. Whenever I see a band on a Tonight Show, like Metallica, I'm like, what are you doing here?

You're like, I guess I'll listen to it, but it's not the same. Yeah, I see what you mean. Or if you're an actor. Yeah, it's your movie. It's the, it's the... Doing the thing is the peak. And I also go, my word, there's two guests in front of me. If you're going out sitting on the couch talking to Jimmy, I mean, you could practically be dead.

And Jimmy would carry that. Going out with a microphone standing. No one's seen you before. Nobody. A lot of them have... No one's around. Jimmy's not coming to help you. No, if things went bad. I mean, do I walk out?

I mean, how much, as you say, you can't fear that this is going to bomb. You have to turn that switch off and just crush it. You have to. But were you thinking that prior? Like, what if this doesn't work? Dude, I think that now. I think that about...

I think that you have to have a little... I mean, the night before, especially when it bombed five times in a row, you go... You put in a lot of trust in this fellow who's telling you it'll go great on TV. And also, it's not... I mean, if it went,

you can look them up. You can look some up on the, that do not go well. Yours? No, on the Tonight Show. Go look up some. You just took, do you type it in?

Stand up, Jimmy Fallon. You could see, I'll send you some. Okay. There do you go? Yeah. Do they have the applause, laugh signs? No, no, no. Okay.

I mean, hopefully, they understand what it is. It's literally the warmest environment ever, but still some people get a little. And did you get, Did you get compliments that you believed from people who worked on the show afterwards? Yeah, I mean, I knew. I knew it was great. You did really well. As I said, I watched it with my two daughters last night and they were laughing. I'm like, this is good.

Because I think if I were you, I'd be like, I just want to not suck. If I can clear that bar where people go, that wasn't embarrassing. I'll be happy. But you did more than that. Somebody, I think maybe as a Christian, and you're talking about entertainment, I feel like a lot of times people, you know, with Christians, I don't even know if this is the right word, get the chance to go, you're like, it's embarrassing

or it's maybe not as. Yeah. You're like, yeah. He's good for a Christian. Yeah, or a Christian maybe movie. And you're like, well, it's a, it's not going to win an Emmy, but like you're watching a Christian movie, they have like the battery pack for the microphone.

And you're like, dude, we can. Or, you know what I'm saying? It's always chint together. It would be. You want it to be Mel Gibson's the passion of the Christ, not God's, not dead. No offense to those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, to be like, oh, man, this is, yeah.

And when it was, I think it was, it made God very proud. Nice. And my dad said to me, what do he say? My dad called me, and he was obviously very proud and very calm. And we talked about me getting it. And he goes, you know my, you know what? My favorite part about it that was, he was very complimentary about the whole set and everything.

And he goes, you said to the whole world, the whole nation that you and your girlfriend that you drop her off her apartment every night. Oh. And go home. I didn't pick up on that, but okay. Neither did I.

And he goes, that made me so, you're just saying, hey, we don't, you took her out to dinner. You had a good time and you, and the joke is the joke, but you give her a hug on the curb and she goes into her apartment. I go into mine. I go, man, that's just how we've chosen to, I didn't even think of that.

You weren't trying to put in a message. Yeah, and I'm also not saying I never stayed or like I'm not innocent in that. I would just, I go, this is just how we live. And he goes, I was so proud of that. I was proud of that and, you know, so was Lydia, obviously. I thought that was, I go, man, what a... Has joking about Christianity for so long, and this probably circles back to something we mentioned

at the beginning of the show where you can't be processing things out of a state of anger and agitation, but I imagine you've been asked this before, has it made you cynical about Christianity as you make fun of elements of Christian behavior and worship and life? I think, when I started in 2009, 2010, 2011,

my voice in Christianity was like, I made a joke about Joel Osteen maybe watering down the Bible or something like that. And you know this, you're my age. No one was saying that. And no one was like, and you're like about a pastor that had a private jet or it was coming from the inside So it was received by everyone, but it was such like, I think at the time, it needed to be kind of like joked about.

I feel, I've talked about this on my podcast. My role now is like, dude, we've crushed everything. We've crushed everything in, at least my faith practice, everything we have torn down. And I think the future of this, like at what point if a pastor has a private jet and he's like, dude, it's not, at what point do we start to turn on the congregants that are keep giving money to, like, the institutions, like we've, like there's a big, there's a big documentary out now about like pastors and like private jets and how they're like, I was like, I did this in 2009. like we like what do you want the church what do you want to just crush it all and then by crush do you mean destroy crush do you mean like keep making fun of it keep making it's been beaten down we've we've all the there's there's humans in everything that are going to be yeah there's humans in business and we crushed I think the future is like is is to defend it in a lot of way or

maybe speak about it in a way of like, I think I said, I was like something about the church. It was like, yeah, like I went to Joel Osteen's church. I went to go kind of, not to make a joke about it, but just to see it. And they got a food pantry there. They got Dave Ramsey there, the books that can help you get out. They got marriage classes. They got parenting classes. They got, you know what I'm saying?

And this is, there, there's a. handful of evangelical churches in America that are very loud and very boisterous and there are Matt tens of thousands that are just a guy showing up on Sunday morning that is doing his best for his community doesn't have any money is doing his best to put these marriages back together to help find people jobs to get them out of addiction to ego well what are we going to do just crush, does that mean? Are we going to just crush all of it? At what point do we go, hey, this guy's doing a good job? How does that translate into your comedy, your Christian comedy? Yeah, I think you can still be critical of like things that you see. I made a video a couple weeks

ago about churches selling like season passes. They'd be like, hey, you know, you're going to buy a seat license, then it reserves your seat, you know, to fight with anybody. It's 500 bucks a month. It's a funny idea that a church would do that. There's still human, human parts of, but I don't know if. In a way, I think the humor around these things kind of prunes the dead branches, right? It helps us look at us. I was going, oh, yeah, fair enough. Yeah.

I don't know if you remember this YouTube video back in the day, this youth pastor comes on stage. Youth pastor with ripped jeans and a tattoo, so you know I've got a past. Oh, yeah, I know that joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot that, you know, was that, yeah. But there was something about that, yeah, oh, thank you. Yes, yeah, yes, that has become a character and thank you for addressing it.

Of like the, like any healthy community is like the court jester. In a way, the king gets every year, the king gives up and does the state of the country. Everybody's doing great, everybody's prospering, this is the best, the future of this is unbelievable, and then the court jester gets five minutes, and he goes,

Have you seen the community on the other side of the hill? They are beating each other, killing each other in a way to just keep the whole community honest. You go, yeah, the king can believe, like if it was a Christian conference and it was everybody teaching fire and brimstone, you were like, geez, we feel terrible about ourselves. It was everybody encouraging you grace. you know, we feel, we feel great about ourselves. I think all the voices humor included are important for this. Same with the country, by the way, that there has to be these voices of humor to kind of bring some. It's like release valves.

Bring some honesty or levity to the whole thing. You have to have comedians making fun of politicians. That's like free speech. That's why it's so scary to lose it. So you go, the North Korea, he says this. And you go, and they kill you. You go, well, then we're done. Yeah.

We're done. And I don't get the sense when I watch your comedy that you're upset about anything. It's sort of like the reason people like Jordan Peterson when he's at his best, right? Is because they feel like they're not getting a lecture from someone who hates them. Yeah.

They feel like they're getting tough talk from someone who believes in them. In a way to make them better. In order to make them better. And I think, Christian comedy, like the stuff you do that I've seen, at least, is this is a guy who, who, he's, he's with us. He's not outside pointing at us, nor is he inside pissed off and giving everyone the finger in a way that shows that he thinks he's better than us. Like you did that thing the other day with that Sheila about saying grace before meals. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's my friend Sarah. Okay. Yeah. That was amazing. About how we don't say. Larry David did something like this and probably curb your enthusiasm about when Catholic. make the sign of the cross.

Because he goes up and picks up chips and doesn't do it? So is it just like a substantive meal? Perfect. That was so funny. In a way to go, you know, bless yourself for snacks. This is kind of silly.

Not silly. It's very, it's life and death. But these, this is interesting. Have you not owned? Yeah, that. It's like, there's a Welch's,

uh, Welch's grape juice. Okay. Which is what we use for our communion. Mm-hmm. I saw in the gas station the other day, a well, which is grape juice energy drink.

Mm-hmm. And you go, I was a joke there. With like a mega-church youth pastor trying to boost communion attendance. Yeah. Or I don't know what the joke is, but you go, so y'all do wine, which is significant to the blood.

but we do grape juice. Mormon Church does water. Did you know that? No. LDS Church does water and bread, bread and water. Okay. And you go, well, this is what we do. And you go, well, this is what, and you go,

so what if you had the grape juice energy drink? Is that? You know what I'm saying? Like, it's all. I love it. Yeah, but again, if that joke goes too far, then it's like, you're out. Now you're mocking it.

Yeah. So it is a very, I guess. go, all right, uh, something about a, a youth pastor trying to be relevant and reaching out to the next. Like, I don't know where, I don't know quite where the joke is, but I bought it. I bought the internet drink and it's in my car. And I go, now you sit with this for weeks until it crystallized. Well, it hasn't come to me yet. So if you see it, you go, oh, he talked about this. Yeah. It's just, it's kind of like a, because it's Welch's grape juice, which is exactly what we use. So if you put this in, you're like,

Or if you're trying to, you're trying to, you're taking communion at 11, but you got a presentation, do it noon or, I don't know if that's the joke either, but you go. Yes, yes. Or if it's like a night service and we're trying to keep people awake. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or like a communion before the dull pastor. Look at us. We're just making a joke down. Or if the pastor goes, hey, I'm kind of low energy, can tell them to get, yeah. Yeah, if he wants. Don't tell anybody it's the, don't tell anybody is the energy welches.

This feels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know what the joke is or if it'll ever materialize, but that's all we do all day. That's really good. Yeah. John, thank you so much for being on the show. Honor to be here. It's really great to have you and to talk with you. This is nice. I'm really glad we did this. One more, sell something. Tell people what to do, where to go, what to click. Oh, man. I don't know. Well, that's not one of my shirts, by the way, that I recommended to you. This is the Buck Mason, right? No, it's not that. This is Buck Mason. That one you're wearing? Yeah. It's the thicker.

It's the thicker Buck Mason. It's just in time for four. And it's also freezing. When you left Nashville, you go, where'd you get that shirt? Was it that one? No, not this is the one I was wearing. It was a Buck Mason. It's the best.

I love Buck Mason. I don't know if I have anything to, I mean, I'm going on tour next week for all fall. We got a couple of big announcements are coming out next spring. I can't talk about yet. But yeah, any city that you're near, most likely I'm coming this fall. come on and you have a podcast i got a podcast net positive yeah it is uh yeah conversation similar to this maybe a little bit more uh lean on the humor side but it was i don't know what i was thinking people like he's a comedian you didn't think it was going to be funny i'm like i didn't

think that far ahead also how did we how did we connect i don't know i don't know either i don't know maybe it was oh i knew i'd followed the pod i'd follow the pot i found the pie because i was looking at the... Maybe your assistant reached out to mine. I'm not sure. No, but I knew. They wouldn't do that. Oh, blindly.

They're just going through the internet. They get this guy. We want you. You'll be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, but that's one of our best podcasts of the year. Yeah. That's good.

I like Nashville. When I went there to visit you, I was also on Knowles' show, so I did two at once. Oh, yeah. I remember, because I hadn't been to Nashville much. So I go to the, I've got to have lunch at the steak restaurant. And I'm sitting down, and I realize there's a Sheila up there with a guitar. And I'm like, oh, for goodness sake, I don't want it. I'm like, there's one other family behind me.

I just wanted, I just wanted to listen to a podcast and now I can't. So here we go. And she played and she was frigging brilliant. She was great. And then I realized, I'm in Nashville. Yeah, it's with every restaurant. I'm not in Jacksonville anymore. No offense, Jacksonville.

And you land in the airport terminal. They got music playing in there. They're incredible. Yeah, they're all great. And I felt terrible. I'm so sorry, I'm the only one you're singing to. You should be singing to a stadium. So you took out your headphones?

I took out my headphones immediately. I know, We've done it even if she was bad because I wouldn't want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is that what it's like in Nashville? Everywhere. Really excellent. Yeah.

And you go, gosh, I was in the airport this morning and the guy's playing at like the bar at the airport. It's the lights out. But everybody, you got to think everybody, every small town in America, they try to get to Nashville. So you're the best. It's like the prom queen. And then they moved to L.A. And then they're a model and they're, yeah, everybody's the prom queen out here. Yeah.

In a way, you know. Yeah. All right. Thanks. to be here.