Pints With Aquinas - Shayne Smith CONVERTS to Catholicism

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Shayne Smith is an American comedian and vocalist for the band, Painted Devils. His special, Prison for Wizards, appeared on Dry Bar Comedy. He is famously covered in tattoos - a reformed gang member - despite his mild manner and geeky appearance. ⭐ Locals' supporters can ask questions here: https://mattfradd.locals.com/post/5099325/shayne-smith-today 💵 Show Sponsors: STRIVE 21: https://strive21.com/matt Ascension app: https://ascensionpress.com/fradd College of St. Joseph the Worker: https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com Interview with Ex-Satanist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5dY5TXiLK0 Interview with Fr. Wetta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLuuDhwihRk&t=7256s  

try to get more. G'day everybody, welcome to Pines with Aquinas. I have a big giveaway that I'm doing this month to try to get more support for the channel and all that we plan on doing this year. You've probably seen this Pines with Aquinas beer stein. This month, January, and this month only, we will be giving this beer stein away for free to anybody who becomes an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com. When you join matfrad.locals.com right now you'll get access to free audiobooks, exclusive podcasts, you'll have the ability to ask my guests questions. You'll also get access to our quarterly newspaper that's sent to your front door called The Jill and we even pay the shipping for that one by the way, whether you

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Very, very nice. So honestly, the first thing I want to know is what was it like opening for Norm McDonald? You threw that out there. Yeah, I did. Like it was no big deal. Opening for Norm was incredible. Norm is one of the funniest people alive or he was one of the funniest people alive. He's gone now. He's alive in my heart. I'll tell you that sometimes I text his old number, just random things like he's he truly was so important to me

So I got to open forum by happenstance I used to be a regular paid regular at my home club in wise guys, which is Salt Lake City, Utah so sometimes headliners come through and they have no one with them to open and then one of the locals gets the shot and So I got to be the one I'm losing my mind I get to be the one a lot of the times you don't get to talk to the headliner. They're just not interested or they're tired or they don't wanna be social, which I get. And so he was not that.

He was get into the green room with me, hang out, so kind. And he did this whole bit where the owner of the club comes in and he goes, hey, I don't have my jokes. I need a pen. Can you get me a pen? And the owner of the club is like, Oh, my God. Yeah, I guess.

And so he goes and gets him a pen and he goes, I need a piece of paper for the pen. I need a piece of paper. And the owner is like, really? He's like, are you serious? He's like, no, I genuinely don't have paper to write my set down. And so he goes and gets paper. And then he goes, I don't know. do you have a stool I can like write on and the owner is literally like

Okay, and he goes and gets a stool So then he sets this piece of paper down on the stool and he has his pennant He's in front of all of us and he goes now if I just had jokes That's how funny he was just for no one just the us three guys in there Yeah, but open forum. He was super gracious super cool liked my comedy and then invited me to dinner with him afterwards Was what? Yeah. Yeah was incredible paid for my dinner took me to like this fancy fancy restaurant I need you to slow this bit down now. I want to know everything. Oh, yeah. Where did you go? So we went to how we went to Ruth's Chris,

which is a steakhouse that I think is like a chain or whatever, but in Utah we don't have a lot going on. So that was it. We went there and we were the friend of his and he was just like so genuinely kind and cool. People would be like, I feel like I know you. You're like famous, right? And he'd be like, I don I know you you're like famous, right? And he'd be like, I don't know what you're talking about, you know like doing it and he would just so humble

Like just talk to me about life. Talk to me about comedy would talk to me about open mics It just things that are like so far beyond him He's so clearly like a comics comic. Do you know what I mean? A person who and he was incredibly present incredibly present with me and just like it's I have a problem where I Am able to engage someone but not be present so I could be on my phone and engage And so I have a bad habit of not being totally present with people, which I think is a flaw, and I'm trying really hard to solve that. But he, I was, he had all of my focus, right? And he was just the best.

And I had all of his, it was crazy, a crazy experience. Then the next night he invited me out again. So kind of me. How does he invite you out? He literally is just like, we're going to eat, are you coming with? Oh, I see. Yeah, like, and there are other people with us

that he didn't invite. Like he's specifically being kind to me, which is like so the comic you know like he treated me like an equal just by the fact that I was like this opener this young hungry guy doing like 15 minutes to open for him and So cool, and then before we left I would like falling around like a puppy dog You know like is it okay if I hang out while you drink or whatever, you know, at the club and so nice to me and then before he left, he goes, what's your phone number? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, I want your phone.

Give me your phone number. And because I was like blown away, I thought he was doing a bit and I gave him my number and then he like texted me. I've had lots of popular comics whose names I won't mention kind of be cool after show. Like I have a note for you. Give me your text. Here's my number. Text me or whatever and then they never reply to you again for the rest of your life and like it's cool that they tried but they got busy. They got a text and they just didn't care or they decided later like I don't even know what I was gonna say or whatever and they don't even give you the time of day, which is fine

Whatever you're famous. Um me but norm messaged me back Norm would just be like how are you? How's it going lately? You know, like not comedy related stuff. Um Nobody to this guy. He was so cool. He would randomly ask you questions like he asked me if I believed in God once just randomly. What did you say at the time? At the time I was like I'm in. I'm it. I said I used to say this in looking back is kind of dorky. I used to say I'm an eight of ten atheist and he goes so yes, yeah, so yes and I go, I guess and he goes agnostic and I go, I suppose in I'm at the time I'm like resisting God because if God exists, the

implication is that he wants something from you. He has expectations of you as a person and that's terrifying and also sounds like work you know and people don't want to work and I also didn't want to work but yeah yeah did you ever ask him for advice so like what did you think of my show yeah yeah yeah how'd that go it went well I mean he gave me like regular advice you know hey you're looking you you looking down you should look up you should perform to the you know just just just like notes, nothing, nothing profound. I don't think I needed it at the time. It takes humility to offer advice.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because I think it's a false humility. Yeah, just turn that off or turn it around. Yeah, yeah. It is a false humility to pretend that you're not good at what you do. Yeah, you know, but when you go, okay No one's perfect and I'm not as good as I could be but I do have something to offer and I'm happy to offer It like that that shows humility. I think I think it does

I know the fact that he didn't try to like sometimes I've asked comics a question or been like, what do you think about this? Or what about this joke or what do you think about stage presence? Just talk and shop and comics will begin to philosophize or just like be grandiose. I wonder if I'm guilty of this. If I am, I cringe to think of another open mic or thinking of a time that I gave them advice and I was like too heady or whatever. I'm sure I've done it, but um, he was not that he was like he gave me what I needed and that was it. He was so interested in just being a dude talking to me as like a human being, which

is wildly invaluable, especially when you look up to someone and they're so important to you. And I never really geeked out and was like, I've watched everything you've ever done on SNL and all of your movies and all of your stand-up like You know, but you can you can criticize what I'm about to say and I feel bad doing it because the man is dead And I pray for his soul I he seemed like a beautiful man But I was listening to some of his comedy driving back from seek and so much of it is perverse and sexual and gross Yes, and in a way because he's so lovable and charming it made it even grosser and whenever

Whenever he was just sort of deadpan and dad jokey and dry. He was so beautiful and lovable I wish he never veered into that direction. Were you hearing stand-up that was really gross or were you hearing? Just like him on other shows talking to people and dealing with things No, because I think when he was on late night shows, there's some level of, please don't be talking about deep sexual things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he didn't do it then. But maybe there was, yeah, there was some stand up that I listened to that I was like, oh, this is so disappointing.

But it's kind of like you've I mean, he's not a friend of mine, but, you know, you become friends with somebody, right? And then once you're friends, you give them the benefit of the doubt. True. Maybe it's like that. I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I just think he was a comic in like, I've done a lot of gross stuff and I've done stuff that's gross that I'm like,

ah, why was I doing? You know, especially now at this stage in my life, I think over the last two years, I've kind of like stepped back and tried to reevaluate comedy and what I want it to be in like, I've deleted a lot of stuff, you know, over the years that I've done that I'm like What was I what why was I doing that? Um, so maybe some of that for him

But also when I saw him live he was doing almost entirely stuff about like history Very morbid very funny very weird So I never got the we didn't talk about anything sexual at all when I was with him. He didn't really ask me about girls or anything. We were just a lot of philosophy, a lot of just life and comedy and like friendships and relationships and like what we think about other comics and how we view things. I don't know. It's awesome. We talked about addiction a lot. I think he was addicted to gambling, and so I think he had a friend there with him to kind of keep

him in check. He also didn't drink alcohol when I was with him. I don't know if he was sober, so he might have been working on all that, and this is probably around the time he maybe he wasn't going through treatment, but he had been diagnosed with something. It was quite a while ago, and he never told me anything about his sickness. He just died. Like one day I was like, he's not dead. And I like messaged him and he was dead. So that was I was like, what a G, you know? I think I mean, I was diagnosed with cancer once and it was false. OK.

But I would have wrecked you, I'm sure. Yeah, I would have been bad. But I only I mean, to be told that that you wrecked you, despite and it was false. Okay. Um, but I would have wrecked you. I'm sure. Yeah. I would have been bad, but I only, I mean to be told that that wrecked you despite whether it was. Yeah, I was told. So I, I didn't tell anybody. I just told three people, three really important people in my life and just waited and kind of was like, am I going to tell anybody? So I kind of see where he's coming from. Yeah. So that's amazing, man. Yeah, yeah. So he was a great guy.

Now you and I met at the Seek Conference. We did. And it was just amazing. Yeah, how funny that worked out. So here's how our relationship began. I get an Instagram message, which I rarely check. And you said, well, why don't you say it? So I said that I'm-

Pints had helped. Yeah, I'm in the process of converting. I found God and through that I found Pints had helped. Yeah, I'm in the process of converting. I found God and through that I found pints and it's just like been such a blessing and a resource. And I just thanked you. So I wrote back and went, I think I said something like, thank God, like I was really gratified to hear that. You were very kind.

But then Thursday, our producer here is like, I was in the backend of Instagram. Do you have any idea who this guy is? I'm like, not really. He's like, we need to get him on the show. That's so funny. And that's when I started listening to your things. My kids love you.

We were driving back from seek and I was playing the bit about you pooping your pants. My daughter was in hysterics. Never a homeless guy around when you need him. Dude, I, that's my, that's my, one of my favorite bits of all time because I never, I never wrote it. It was not written. It really happened I was on the way to a show I got on stage After poop in my pants said what I say and it never changed Like that is not that's the easiest bit I've ever done. You didn't have to craft it

I didn't little bits away right just as I never wrote it. I just happened. Yeah and Unfortunately, it really happened But yeah, all that is to say you're extra you've got a real gift that you've obviously worked really hard at and everyone I know here in student villas agrees. So so yeah, that's awesome. Does that make you gross when I say that no no, I have a really hard time taking compliments of any kind me, too It's tough. I don't know how to graciously do it because I so badly want to be humble. I think it's unmanly to be Boastful or to be like yeah Like like that's for girls. That's a girl boss quality, which I think is fine.

I actually love a confident woman. Like a woman who's like, yeah, I nailed it. I love what you said. Cause I said, I don't know if we were talking about relationships or something and you said, I need a woman who takes up, fills up a room. Yeah, yeah. I like when a woman takes up space.

That's what you said. I love that so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. My wife's like that. She is. You feel her presence. Mother Nat what you said. I love that so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. My wife's like that. She is. You feel her presence. Mother Natalia is like that.

Mother Natalia fills up, your wife spoke at a, at, at Seek, a conference with like thousands, she filled the room. Yeah. Very funny too. So, okay, so this is your first Catholic conference, presumably.

First, anything even remotely like that, yeah. And you show up 22,000 Catholics. What was the experience like it was great. I've had a lot of As I began to get interested in Christianity, I And then I was like this is happening to me. It's not something I chose it just happened. You know, like It's it's just real and it is what it is And so I began to become very worried about how Christians were going to treat me or how they would perceive me or think About me or maybe they would be weird or not. Trust me or I don't know You just have all these weird insecurities, especially as a guy who looks like I do I've had weird insecurities my whole life And so it's it's been so completely and

totally and viscerally the opposite. No community I've ever encountered has ever been so gracious and loving and kind and everything that you hear about in the news or that people say or experiences I've had none of it matches anything I've ever been told. And then going to this conference was just like so many people who had no idea who I was. They didn't know my comedy. They didn't know what I was doing there and I was by myself and like they would just walk up and be like, what are you up to? What are you doing here? Do you have friends around like, but not in a way like who are you? What are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But because I'm

clearly the badge I'm there, but just to to be like you want to eat lunch with us Do you want to hang out? How are you? like I met this priest and we just made friends and I was just talking to him about life and his priesthood and like Just incredible just incredible stuff in like they don't what they're already Catholic. I as far as they know, I'm Catholic There's nothing that I'm trying to win you over. There's nothing to gain or get from me. There's twenty two thousand people here. They're literally just like oh, you were standing alone. How are you doing? What are you? What are you up to? What's your story? You know, like and I saw that happening with other people to who weren't freaks. So I was like oh, so this isn't unique to me. These people

are just like being kind and then you know, I've gone to different parishes. Everyone's been super cool. So the conference was just this eye opening thing of like, Oh, this is a whole community of people that re that actually practice their values. I'm sure many people fall short. I do. We all do. But like to be told my whole life, Christians are bad and they want to stop you from doing what you want to do, which kind of true on some level I suppose but like that and then to go there and have these people be like hey If you just so you know, whatever you've done wherever you've been or whatever mistakes you've made I love you is like like it's like everything to stop myself from a weeping almost just talk about it

It's incredible and what was if you don't mind me asking, you can show as much as you like. We went, my spiritual father, Boniface, hopefully one day yours as well, celebrated mass in his hotel room and we were invited, so there was like five or six of us. And that man, when he speaks, it's like. It's incredible.

So can I tell you that I was terrified to do that and I almost didn't do it. Tell us all. Cause it was the night before you and I, you weren't having cigars cause you don't smoke. I was having cigars. We were drinking. You weren't drinking. I was drinking soda. We'll get to that later. Yeah. And I invited you two to come and it was quite late. That was a great night by the way. Such fun time. I'm usually out by nine. I'm tired. I'm people out. I was loving. Yeah, we got with the boys

It was a good time and that huge exercise we got running around Stadium not knowing where we were we went on an adventure. It was an yeah We tried to find the box office so you go into place We didn't know we were we're like enlisting random people to help us. They're telling us to go the wrong way We're going through doors to say don't enter. What a good time They're writing me a Boy Scouts When you're just kids and you're kind of like you're not necessarily up to no good, but you're gonna do whatever it takes You know Chester said that an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered

Oh, and so I like that you sort of isn't incredible. Yeah, I I'm a Adventure is that's like my modus operandi. That's like I love that adventure is what I'm all about and so um so I got you You invited no pressure of adventure, so we meet you're so kind. I meet all all your friends. I'm hanging out with you I'm making friends people. I'm feeling real connections I'm like okay, so these are the boys and I like the I'm gonna I like these people if we get in a fight tonight I'm gonna have their back kind of thing. You know you decide that as a man like you were friends and so um then you invite me and I'm like wow this feels like a big deal and

And then I realized like um, I'm like new, you know, I've been going to master like six months or something You know consistently and so I'm like, what do I don't want to go to mass these people? What if I kneel at the wrong time? What if I like don't say the right thing or I sing bad or I you have all these like wild thoughts or like what what if I'm gonna be there with like a benedict and monk who's going to do mass in his hotel and he's gonna be so close to me I could hit it and there's gonna be an in a Byzantine nun You know like and then me do I even deserve to be in the room with these people and um

And I'm trying to get into this mode where I'm like, well, I should pray about it I should think about it And so I was praying about it and I and I just had this feeling like if you're allowed to be in the room with Christ the impot the Eucharist Why would you not be allowed to be in the room with these people and so I was like I was like be courageous So it was this moment where I was like so so so nervous and I just felt embarrassed for myself I was like I'm going for it. And so I woke up on time I went down there and I go and of course I get into the hotel lobby and it's just mother Natalia waiting and I was Like this is my nightmare. It's the nun. I'm by myself with the nun and

We're all tired and she's kind of like not austere But she seems serious like she's ready for the task and but she's sweet and I'm just kind of like just barely like, hey, how are you? And I'm in my head and I'm so nervous and embarrassed and I want to impress her and then I'm like mad at myself for wanting to it. Why do I need people to like me? And so um I'm dealing with all this and then you show up and I feel much better and you're like let's get a coffee and whatever and we go up and And mass starts and I'm and I'm still nervous and I'm I'm like in my head and I'm like feeling kind of awkward

And as mass starts to go I just I like I'm having this like is it a charismatic experience Is that what I wanted when you like have a it's not a miracle But it's like the look like I feel like I'm being literally spoken to by God one of the and and I just it's almost like someone put their forehead on mine and was like I'm with you like everything's okay I'm here with you right now and I just started crying and I was like okay so now I'm crying in front of everyone and there was one moment of of Like I'm embarrassed and then there was like a hey, I'm with you right now I'm with you. Everything's okay, and I just started weeping and I was like, okay, so let's just do a little manful cry I've heard of people crying in mass before and I've never wept during mass. I've wept in church is the story

I'll tell you later, but I so I I begin to cry. I'm like, let's get a little manful weep in. I'll just like some tears rolling down and then I start to cry cry and I'm like all right. We've yeah, we've crossed over into like you didn't sound like that a toddler crying. Well, I'm like snot is running out of my nose because I'm like now I'm fully weeping and I'm like oh no and I'm I'm wearing the clothes I'm gonna wear all day and I'm wearing like a vintage t-shirt too so I'm like I really like my t-shirt I get and and who comes with the rescue Cameron Fred your wife she had she I just I just feel this tap on my arm and I go huh and I look over and it's a napkin and I'm like this

these are the greatest people. This is exactly where I belong. This is who I belong to. This is what is, this is the purpose of my life. This is the most fulfilling thing I've ever experienced, you know? And it was this moment of just like someone giving me a napkin and, and literally God is talking to me and Father Boniface is there and it's so beautiful. And I was like, this is the culmination of me, of any sort of worry or like questions of faith I had just like were obliterated. You know, it was awesome.

It was a great experience. Thank you so much for inviting me. But I was just like, wow, I cried pretty hard in front of everyone. I was like, if anyone else wants to start crying that would be awesome for me well we've all been there like we all wept at Mass or had those experiences so it was nothing yeah so now I know that yeah but it's I'm it also affirms my faith in that I didn't I've heard of like I've heard Thomas Aquinas wept in Mass and you know you're like oh yeah the've heard Thomas Aquinas wept in mass and you know, you're like

Oh, yeah, the smartest guy ever and he wept in mass. Well, he was a saint. Yeah, so When he weeps like whatever, you know, he probably weeps when he pray he's in touch. He's got the direct line He's a saint and so when I'm crying I'm thinking like this is a weird. This is weird, right? This is I'm I don't even understand I'm thinking like, this is weird, right? I don't even understand, I'm so overwhelmed with emotion. I'm having like a psychedelic experience or something. And then to find out like, no, that is normal. The Holy Spirit does that to us.

So I had this experience at Mass and I'm reluctant to share it because it might sound crazy. And I tend not to say things like, God told me this or God told me that because whenever people say that to me It makes me afraid and But but I'm gonna say it anyway. I had this sense. Okay, so I'm gonna veil it in mystery and okay What do I know? Maybe I was hallucinating or I had a bad bit of stake But as father Boniface lifted up the Eucharist, I just had this image of this flood this like ocean just hitting you directly and

You know, maybe that meant nothing maybe maybe but I was just praying for you and it It had me in the presence of our Lord man. It was Like the most affirming experience of my life Truly a life-changing moment and then father Boniface there And I just look over and mother Natalia has her hand on her. She and like the image of her is burned into my head she's so beautiful and so virtuous and like Repres I get emotional about Mary which is something I didn't know would happen, you know Especially as like a person who's never been exposed to Catholicism until recently

You she's powerful. It's a powerful image. And so I'm just seeing her there and she's like this. She's mother Mary, like that's how I'm feeling. Like mother Natalia is the embodiment of all these virtuous and all the most beautiful things about a woman. And I'm just like, this is insane. How good this is. there's so much goodness in the room. It's like overwhelming. Yeah, it was good Just thinking about I'm like if I start crying 15 minutes into the podcast Yeah, it was a joy and it was funny too because you actually you had a lot of people recognize you I did Which was fun the funniest moment of course is because I'm walking five feet and being stopped continually yeah that's your Super Bowl that's my Super Bowl yeah but we went to a coffee shop together was

like a 12 minute walk and I'm standing at the register and you're there and there's a guy behind you looking in my direction with his mouth open you know like yeah wait me or him he's got no idea who I am. Yeah, so pumped to meet you Yeah, it was me and he was so he was so cool He was he wrote me on Instagram or he posted on Instagram It was like I'm a chain and he was like so nice We like really genuine interaction and I was like, yes And you said that's what I'm trying to do You said something funny cuz I thought it was cool that he didn't ask for a photo when he clearly wanted one

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you said oh I said I I noticed that and I want to Sometimes be like do you want a photo cuz I want to offer it to them They're so cool that I want them to have it even though they're we're doing the respectful kind thing But once I was like would you like a photo and they said no Was like well never doing that again. That was the worst thing has ever happened and it was a beautiful woman, too by the way, so I was like well never doing that again. That was the worst thing that ever happened, and it was a beautiful woman, too By the way, so I was like No Just like yeah, that's the worst and you said something interesting to me as we were sitting at the cigar lounge

You said you gave up cigarettes if I understood you correctly when you were 14 Yeah, please explain to me what happened before you were 14, so I just grew up White trash is we're gonna say trailer trash And I had a hard hard childhood You know, it was just So many weird things happened. I would you know, it was it was bad. So When I was young I was like 12 and I was hanging out I'm like just barely 12 and I'm hanging out with some of my friends and we we just get in my

Friends dad's car or truck and we drive out to the gas station. That's outside of town No for people who don't know I grew up in the middle of nowhere more middle than nowhere, whatever you're imagining like like a Just imagine like a chapel and then you know in a movie and then you look down the road and there's Nothing and you look down the other side of the road there. That's where I'm from and so This gas station is literally in the middle of nowhere It's like a way station for people and but it's a real gas station and we pull up and there's no one working Usually it's 24 hours, but like we're like, oh no one's here and the back door was kind of open

And so we just smashed the back door open and now we're robbing this place clearly as one as teenagers do and um We stole a ton of energy drinks and a palette of cigarettes Like they had not unloaded the palette and so how did you get that out of it? We just like by just you're tossing it into the truck? Oh, I see like we didn't just like get the palette it like like a thing at a time Yeah, like it probably took us like an hour or two, honestly So we steal all this and then we drive it back and we take it to like our tree fort We built in the mill and nowhere and stock it full of cigarettes and energy drink and we had infinite cigarettes

So I started smoking at 12 years old and I was smoking, no joke, a pack or more a day until I was 14. So I had to quit. It wasn't just like I was like, oh, I shouldn't do this. It was like, I had to literally quit cigarettes. Like it was a problem. So yeah, I was a little man.

I was up to stuff as a child, you know. So if it's not too intimate to ask, please, did you not have kind of parents who are guiding you and you and all this? I didn't have a lot of guidance. My mother, who I love very much and our relationship is incredible now. She's a wonderful woman. And I honestly thank God for God. I guess, you know, he without him a lot of healing my relationship with my mother wouldn't be possible, which

I didn't even realize necessarily until later. But so, um, she was dealing with substance abuse and, um, and just and just like well she had horrible husbands So I can't blame her she's literally trying to survive life and when a mother is trying to survive life You are put in a situation where you're trying to survive life And so I didn't have I had moments where people were paying attention to me, but by and large I did Literally whatever I wanted and had no oversight which you know is incredibly negative as a kid. There's lots of people who are out to hurt you. I was exposed to those people and then also you hurt yourself because you're a child. And so I didn't have a lot of like, I don't think I did like I have like maybe four years of formal education under my belt, ever. Ever, ever. So I was just up to my own stuff. So I did whatever I wanted. You know, smoking was not a problem for me. Like who would stop me?

And so, you know, and I also grew up in a house where sometimes it would be like, hey, if you go home tonight, you're going to catch a beating. Not for my mother, but my stepfather. One of my stepfathers was a murderer and an incredibly bad guy. Um, and I don't, I'm being serious. He went to jail for murder, uh, in Sir Manslaughter. Um, and so my other stepfather was, he just didn't care about me. I don't think I ever had a conversation with him ever, so that's a horrible thing for a kid too, but in a different way, one is completely neglectful to me in a way that's like so and totally complete that I don't even understand what's going on there and the other paid too much attention to me, but was evil and so um yeah, so I dealt

with that. So there would be times where I just wouldn't come home for days, you know, because I would be like, well, I can't deal with X or Y or I would come home and see that things were going on at home. I didn't want to be a part of and kind of just sneak off into the night. And I had times as a child where like it would, I wouldn't want to go home, but I had nowhere to go. But it was too cold to sleep outside I would freeze to death so I would stay up all night Walking to stay warm until the next morning when I could visit a friend and then their family would be very cool like oh

Shane what's up? And I'd be like oh I'm just hanging out and like play it off and get breakfast and then take a nap so that was like my childhood So really sorry that oh, I mean, you know, want me to say that or not. I'm really sorry that happened to you. I assume you would be sorry, you know, because it sounds so terrible. And you're a father. So I know it touches.

It hits you differently in me. I don't have any kids. I think a lot of that is well, one, because I'm not married and I don't, you know, I'm no one to start a family with. But two, I've feared marriage in Family yeah, I think totally because of my experiences, but like yeah, I had I had Wild experiences even in terms of like my first stepfather was neglectful his his Grandparents didn't like me and they were the grandparents of my three brothers

And so like we went to Christmas with them, and they just didn't like me and they were the grandparents of my three brothers and So like we went to Christmas with them and they just didn't get me gifts So my brothers all got gifts and I was like just chilling by myself And then I have to watch my mother like have this Scream at these people and then she's sorry and then like, you know It was a whole it was just a tumultuous childhood throughout. And so I really took care of myself and my brothers, you know, we took care of each other as much as we could, but we were also very poor, sleeping on a mattress together,

like all of us type things. So, but also I have incredible memories from that time of my life. Like some of my favorite memories of my entire life or me and all my brothers packed into this tiny room with our boombox Playing whatever music link apart whatever and then we're all playing video games together Like watching my big brother play like a video game and all of us are watching we're all together those memories are like Yeah, really good. Yeah, I don't mean to try to relate to your childhood at all. No, no, no. I remember talking to my wife about some of my greatest experiences.

A child was playing video games with friends and she's like, that's so sad. Like, no, actually it isn't. It was the best. It's beautiful. We would eat chocolate biscuits as we call them in Australia, drink coffee, stay up all night. And we were together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were united around this thing and it were together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were united around this thing, and it was great. It was great. Yeah, video games, people have like a weird thing

with video games, especially like our age and a little older, and I just think it's like a cultural idea that video games are like not worth our time. But if you imagine, if you had told her some of my best memories are just being with my mates throwing rocks at a train She'd be like, oh, that's like kind of beautiful in you just have to reframe it and understand that video games aren't Really what we're doing You know video games are powering your imagination to go to a different place

Now you're younger than me, but not by a lot not by a lot So we probably remember the same video game. so we're gonna do this now. Yeah All right. So for me my top five games were probably you know at a given time maybe quake red alert Pandora directive was my all-time favorite game What are those wrong that on the PC? Yeah. Yeah, there was a game called phantasmagoria, which I wouldn't recommend people checking out I know it. Yeah, yeah, it's good And Quake is also one that Duke Nukem 3d obviously that came out.

Duke Nukem 3d's Don't Google that everybody Don't play it But at the time I just remember thinking I would be happy if I could play this all day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. So fun What about you? Um, I so me and my brothers so my stepdad actually so he used to like um, I think he would collect debts and so if you're like in a motorcycle club and you do you collect debts from like people who have gambling debts or loan debts or or oh money for any number of nefarious reasons you get to You know show up to their home and be like I I'm going to kill you. If you don't give me this money. And when you do that, you also get to go, Oh,

and also give me that. And so sometimes my stepfather would bring us home like a Nintendo or whatever, and we'd be like sick. And so one time he brought us home, a computer and we were like, okay. And so then it was off to the races and we played Starcraft, Red Alert, Should've said Warcraft 2. StarCraft Warcraft 2. Oh, Zug Zug, you know, my goodness. Those, yeah, yeah. And they had those Warcrafts,

you could create your own land space. Yes, yes. And so you would build the walls ahead of time and stuff. So good. Yeah, we would do the StarCraft map editor all the time. So any RTS or real-time strategy games, so like Red Alert was a big one for us. We loved that.

And then what else did we play? I mean, we played a bunch of stuff on Nintendo, or Super Nintendo too, but PC was where it was at. StarCraft and Red Alert were huge. My big brother was way into Quake 2, and he would like make custom maps and stuff. What else did we play on PC? Diablo.

Oh yeah, that was good. A lot of Diablo. I don't think you can find the first one very easily out there these days. I think they've remade it. The second one I think got remade. Maybe the first one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think the first one has a remaster, but I'm not sure. The first Quake was legitimately scary. Yes. Do you remember that? I would play in a dark room with my friends and you would hear that, ah, monster behind the wall is about to eat you.

He's legitimately frightened. We played, monster behind the walls about to eat you. Yes legitimately front front We played I remember watching my brother play Silent Hill Oh, yeah, and we would just the light to be off and we'd be like in a blanket and everyone would be scared I can't play those I still to this day can't play scary games. Yeah, they get they get you What about scary movies scary movies are fine? I don't watch them. I feel like it's a thing you do with It's a romantic activity. I think getting scared with someone you're romantic with is fun and but on your own is on my dude. My brother's way into horror movies like he's a like subscribe to fangoria interested in the director

and like how they're written in what they mean. I'm like you're a serial killer. What are you doing? Like you watch horror movies by yourself Yeah, I do not enjoy that experience when I'm alone. Although I I'm okay listening to really good online Horror like knife point horror is an excellent podcast. I look okay Alright, I can see myself reading some some Lovecraft or something. I'll read it. Yeah, but I wouldn't watch it But reading is reading it. There's like so much more happening. It's so much more interesting So yeah horror movies though. I'm just kind of like why am I scared by myself right now? When did you get your first tattoo?

14 and tell us that story that evolved so I got my first tattoo me and my best friend Devon at the time We're like, oh we need to get tattooed. Girls love tattoos. We're cool guys who listen to metal and punk rock. Why aren't we covered in tattoos right now? And we're children. And so we lied to a guy and said we were 18 and he had to have none. But he was just like, yeah, yeah, whatever.

And so he tattooed, it's actually these words on my wrist that say live love burn die. Okay. Um, it's supposed to be burn with passion. It's like a little Shakespearean deal which is why this arms blacked out but that tattoo stays because it's a matching tattoo with my childhood best friend who him and I have gone totally different directions in life but stayed friends the whole time cool so fun But um yeah, so I got I got that tattoo and after that it was off to the races I mean I got a lot of kitchen table tattoos, which is like when you just have a guy with a homemade tattoo gun getcha It's not a gun. It's a machine, but this is this is I'm using the word gun. It's like a pejorative

I think it's bad. I should not have done this and I got like a lot of bad tattoos I was covered in bad tattoos by the time by the time I was 19. I was Heavily tattooed. Yeah heavily now. It must be quite the step to go from arms even chest to face Yeah, I mean and neck. Yeah, so when did you make that decision and was it hard at the point? It was not hard because I was involved just with groups of people where tattoos, it was the culture to have tattoos was like a symbol of your commitment to what you were up to in your lifestyle, a sign of like toughness, manliness and sort of

It was kind of a commitment thing like yeah, I'm in this. I'm you don't want anything to do with me it was sort of like a Yeah, I mean just prison style basically and so I got my face tattooed with another friend as sort of like I mean It's it was a gang tattoo at the time. So that was the first one and So yeah, it was just like it wasn't even a thought Just happened, you know as soon as we we we decided together it was on What is the gang tattoo if you don't know me asking so I used to be a part of like a group of people and I won't Say the name but it's the markers for the name of the culture like a motorcycle club. Yeah So um and that motorcycle club doesn't exist

Which is why I haven't covered these up because they kind of just don't matter anymore now They're a little reminder of like hey, this is where you come from mind your p's and q's and and be not that guy Be not that child because I got them when I was young but like so um Yeah, so that that that group be patched into another larger group Motorcycle clubs absorb smaller motorcycle clubs, so that's just how we'll we'll talk about it Yes, so yeah now you've covered up a lot of your tattoos, and I wonder if you'll cover up more and why yes I am covering up more. These tattoos, so my neck is a cover up,

my arm is a cover up and I have a cover up on my stomach and on my leg and they were gang tattoos. They were just either gang tattoos or they were lewd and I just didn't want them anymore. And so I covered them up just to kind of like move on. But genuinely, truly, I love being tattooed. I covered them up just to kind of like move on. Yeah but genuinely Truly, I love being tattooed. I Always say I want to I think a real gift you can give yourself as a person is to look into the mirror and the person

You imagine yourself as looks back at you. I so I I am This is how I want to look I have tattoos. I love tattoo culture. I think it's something decorating ourselves in terms of just clothes and jewelry and whatever is a part of human culture. The oldest mommy we've ever found in the world has tattoos. She has a sparrow tattooed on her not even like a random design like a Sophisticated fit like a clearly just art and so I think tattooing is beautiful and I want to be covered and so Even if I had no tattoos now, I would I like this let people hate this tattoo They hate the blackout or the patterns I love it I like what do I want

to say historical tattooing so like a lot of tattooing that's like found on mummies and stuff is cool to me I love that and a lot of especially like Slavic or norse or scandinavian or even like picní and like european upper europe northern european tattooing is which i am obviously which i'm assume we both are just by looking at it and everything about us but is like real heavy black work or blue work being covered and so i like that so, so I would get that anyway So I was like let's roll. Let's just cover this up And so i'll be doing that in the same way on this arm as well

now these tattoos aren't bad and actually like some of them a lot, but I just feel like There's a maturity That I see in myself when I look at this tattoo, and I just want that for the rest of me. So if I had these tattoos and I couldn't get them covered, it would not affect my life. I would be a very happy person and I would enjoy them, but I'm going to cover them because I think tattooing is marking a point in your life.

And people get frustrated like, oh, why are you covering them? And it's like, well, no, tattooing is a part of your life and just because I've done one doesn't mean the process is over. I am a continuous process and so is my art. The way you dress will also evolve over time. You are not such a well dressed person when you were younger. I'm assuming a lot of Metallica shirts, which I'd like to bring back from time to time actually. I have a bunch of vintage Metallica shirts.

I'll give you one or two. Oh, I wish I had my old school ones because you can go buy them now, of course, with its reference, but we'll get to Metallica. So you said lewd tattoos. Did you have any sort of satanic or pagan ones you had to cover? Yes. Or wished to cover?

Yeah, so I used to have the sigil of lucifer Tattooed on my thumb right here and it was kind of like I was involved with Again, I was like an eighth the new atheist the new atheism was like a thing for me. I I Always had I've always been interested in history philosophy and theology. I've always thought Theology was beautiful, but I've always kind of been annoyed by it because like all people I just want to do what I want to do Yeah, what do you mean? I can't masturbate. What do you mean? I can't do whatever I want on Sunday What do you mean? I have to think about the consequences of my actions in a broader, you know, like this kind of thing and so the consequences of my actions in a broader, you know, like this kind of thing. And so if you admit God is real, you have to admit that he has expectations of you.

And that just was obvious to me. So I spent a lot of time trying to justify to myself that God was not wanting anything from me, despite the fact that I knew. So, new atheism, and then the Satanic Temple, which is like an atheist organization. Though I don't know. I had a former Satanist on my show recently, you should check it out. Yeah, I'll have to watch that. He talked about how he's convinced that those higher up are absolutely believers in Lucifer. Yeah, yeah. In retrospect, like, yeah, something's going on. Come on.

So, but they did work, they did like, what do I wanna say? They're a political organization. There's a political organization. And some of the stuff they did was on surface level was like, yeah, like doing the like, after school stuff for kids. If you don't believe in Satan,

that's just a silly heavy metal guy tutoring a kid in math, right? There's nothing negative about that really in your head. And so as I'm, uh, I was like, Oh, this is cool. I'm interested in this like sort of secular warriors for reason. And so, and then I love heavy metal. I've always been into heavy metal culture. So I'm interested in this like sort of secular warriors for reason and so and then I love heavy metal I've always been into heavy metal culture. So I'm like, why wouldn't I get heavy metal tattoos? And so, um, I got it on my hand is like an edge Lord like a yeah Yeah, I'm kind of like a cool guy Yeah, and um over time I realized it was cheesy and dork, but I have a lot of cheesy and dorky tattoos, so I left it, whatever. And then as I began to, even before Christianity was interesting to me, I kind of thought this

is stupid. Like, this is like genuinely negative. Do I even want this? And I was thinking about how to cover it. And I was like, I don't know. It's a weird spot. It's a weird spot on my thumb. And I was like, I could just

cover it by like blacking it out more, I guess, but that kind of weird. And so I'm deciding what to do with it. I decide to convert. I decide Christianity, decided to convert to Catholicism and now I'm like, now I'm interested in victory over the beast. Satan is a real concept. I understand what's going on with that and I unfortunately have experiences with it And so I go to my tattoo artist I'm like I want to cover this is why whatever and she goes okay, and she's like this is a tough spot Well, how are we gonna cover this and so we ended up fitting across? Perfectly in the pattern to cover it and then because of the way the sigil of Lucifer is drawn

We left three perfect Diamonds in there that accidentally represent the trilogy Trinity Trinity. Sorry the trilogy. I got Lord of the Rings brain Yeah, the trilogy of God, you know how that works. It was the father then the son and the Holy Spirit. I'm a big fan So it was but it represents a Trinity and it was just I got this tattoo and it was it's kind of like yeah It's cool. Get some let's go. So it was cool. Um, and I've covered other ones that were just like whatever, you know When I see the three big X's on your neck, I think pornography, but that's not right means well, by the way I want to tell people that we are gonna have We are going to have Thursday. I think a put a link to Michael Davis's interview below.

He's the ex-Satanist. It's an incredibly powerful interview. If people are interested, click the link below and watch it. Yeah, what does the three X's mean? So that's straight edge. That's a subculture of metal and punk that is about sobriety and just,

what do I want to say bettering yourself and so punk back in the day was all about like oh what's wrong with society man and then also I do a lot of drugs and free love and whatever it's hippie stuff it was hippie stuff with an edge and there were a lot of people in punk rock who were like we are talking about material things. What material change are you making? You're just making people mad at you This is stupid. You're just getting attention for nothing. You're saying things that don't that don't Do anything and so there were bands like black flag Henry Rollins Who's a huge hero of mine and all these people were like no, no, no, no, no I wear gym shorts. I work out. I'm jacked. I don't think I'm not out here trying to have a ton of casual sex

I'm not doing drugs. I'm just wearing a t-shirt. I have some tattoos. I have a good haircut I'm strong and I make good music and my message is That a same political message Things have to change we live in an oligarchy whatever whatever But like now I'm taking it to the streets to go on a personal level So rather than complaining about the world not changing you focus on yourself exactly Well you take it down to the level the material level where it matters the most the idea is that the most punk rock Revolutionary thing you can do is better yourself and then better the people the lives who you're a part of if I'm sober

My wife has a better life as long as I don't have a problem, you know Like I'm not addicted to anything if I'm sober I can help the lady next door clean the squirrels out of her gutter I can you know, and so it's about making the world better in a real material sense. And to them, that was more punk rock. So is it a commitment? It is a commitment. It's an oath you make. And what do you have to commit to? You're committing to no substances and no alcohol and no smoking for the entirety

of your life. Now there are lots of people who then get in the weeds about it real as all people do with philosophy or commitments or whatever, you know, just like we do as Catholics. We have a lot of questions. We have a council. We yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's a straight edge council of Nike or whatever. And so where they were kind of like, um, you know, like obviously if you break your leg and they give you morphine, you're still straight edge. Obviously if you need to take Xanax because it's prescribed to you by a doctor, you're straight edge.

Obviously if you have, um, if you're going through low key leukemia and you're prescribed edibles, you know, THC and edibles to like try and understand, uh, not feel in pain constantly, you're still straight edge. It's about frivolous things it's about masking pain it's about not embracing True life, you know, it's about living your life in an authentic way that takes care of everyone around you And so yeah, so how long has it been since you

haven't drank, smoke weed, done other drugs, cigarettes? Fourteenth birthday. Well, so I'm 37 now. So 23 years or something. That's wild. Yeah. So you haven't drunk since you were 14. Yeah, that's a lot of

commitment to make as a 14 year old to stick to it. Man, I don't have a lot of things I would ever be like this old to stick to it man that I I Don't have a lot of things. I would ever be like this. Yeah, I'm good at this or whatever I even hesitate to say I'm a good comedian a lot of the time what I will say is anytime there's ever been a Moment in my life where I needed to commit to something or I thought things were different, I've been incredibly good at identifying it and being like this right now, always forever, boom, and sticking to it.

I'm really good at that. It's only happened a couple times in my life, but I think by virtue of it happening once when I was 14 and me sticking with it till now is a good indication that I'm pretty solid on this. So are there any people, part people pilot straight-edge community who at some point in their life like listen, I'm married My wife wants a glass of wine with me. I'm doing this with her. Where is that? Absolutely? No. No. Yeah, you can't absolutely not This is this is like the church was as strict as your previous community

We have a very big dispensation culture in the church. Yeah, yeah, it's hardcore. It's an oath. It's an oath you make and you you keep it for your brothers, for other people. It's sort of like a there's no like meetings, there's nothing to it, there's no uniforms, but when someone else is straight-edge you go, how long? And you go, I love you, you know? And that's it. What about pornography pornography is not something people really talk about casual sex and pornography aren't necessarily a part of the core parts of it but it correlates deeply with it and so people do sometimes go your straight edge so no you don't have sex before

you're married or whatever which I think is cool and you know but that's not the strict part of it I heard there were elements of straight edge like not conforming to a particular religion. Is that not true? No, not even close straight edge is Heavily, there are lots of Mormon people who are heavily straight edge and also there's a very very very strong Christian straight edge scene and they actually make the heaviest music. No one even comes close. Tell me about some of these bands, so it's funny because one of my introductions to God and how sincere and good it can be came from a band called Sleeping Giant Which is a hardcore band now they're from Orange County in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City where I'm from is

I'm just gonna say they're the most straight edge When I came up there was about 20 years where Salt Lake was the most straight edge place on earth There was no scene in hardcore that even came close Hardcore is a subset of metal and punk and while it's played it has things called breakdowns and two-step sections Where you you have a physical act you perform during the music. So a breakdown, it's like a four, four beat usually. And it's very like, if you heard it just in your chest and you didn't do nothing about the music, you'd be like, Ooh, I want to, this is, this has got me going. Like it's like the Hawke. And so you do this thing called

Moshing or hardcore dancing or just moshing is what most people call and it's not bumping into each other You're throwing punches and kicks you're doing cartwheels. You're doing backflips. You're grabbing people and yanking them down You're just grabbing someone and punching them in the face. You're running full speed into the crowd, you're jump kicking people, it's incredibly violent. Like absurdly violent. So that sounds really bad then, because I don't think it would be a good thing to physically hurt a friend or a stranger. I mean there's an agreement I suppose that's taking place among everyone. Yeah, think of it like rugby. Think of it like rugby, and then there's kind of unspoken

rules in just a social order where it's not necessarily one time. It's not like if I just grabbed you and looked you in the eye and hit you in the face for no reason in the was the wrong part of the side just didn't make sense and I'm trying to hurt you. It would be obvious and I would probably get beat up. So there is a certain amount of rules, but they are not set in stone. It's very ebby and flowy, and there can be confusions and people can get mad, but for the most part,

it's not all holds barred. There's a brotherhood to it, and a sisterhood too, that is wild. You get knocked out by someone, and you stay, and you hold it, you're like, yeah, let's go baby. That was sick So I hate that so much. I think I yeah, it's funny. I thought for everybody. I mean good I would hope no. Yeah. Yeah, it is there is a safe place to be at these shows So the closest I can get to that which is not very close when I used to be in mosh pits and things

I go to metal concerts. I loved it I love the aggression of all of us kind of like, you know, seething as a group as it were, like the ocean. I like that too. But I remember as hanging out with some friends, good mates of mine, one of the best experiences we all had together was about 11 p.m. at his birthday party

where we all decided to go down the street to the park and just wrestle. Yeah. Really hard. Oh, dude. But there was a respect there because we knew that there was, I mean, there's always a respect. If I invite your violence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have to respect you because you could kill me or I could hurt you. Yeah, yeah. So there has to be a mutual respect there. So that may be the closest I could get to it where I thought it was a real bonding moment for us. Yeah. I have done like Muay Thai and like fighting and there's

something about a really really hard fight where you want to thank the other person yeah for being the way they are and absorbing that punishment and giving it back and sort of right I get that you to that place I get that but if I'm in a mush pit with a hundred people or more I can't necessarily consent to a particular act of violence like I don't know if you're gonna throw yourself up against me or grab Me and throw me and punch me. Yes, I might I might not be willing to accept that. Yeah, this seems different There's also a certain amount of like well then take if you don't want that then don't let it happen Okay, and that's an option to you. Maybe if maybe There are safe places to be at these shows.

I say safe in quotation marks. Some shows I'll admit there's no safe place. Most shows there is though. And so these happen. Salt Lake is well known for being the most violent. The only place that would come close is maybe Boston and to a lesser extent, I would say Orange County or a place in California also called the Inland Empire. These two

places where the hard the hardcore and straight edge scene is off the chain. Salt Lake is on another level though, and so sleeping giant is a band from here and they are hard in in in this scene in the hardest scene. They are now insane So you've got the most insane of the insane we're talking about like, you know, this is oh you're a monk Well, this is the craziest holy order that you've ever seen like it's so and they're Christian and they're not just a little Christian These are guys like the venue tells them not to preach during their set and they're it's gonna preach harder and they're Gonna kicked out forever and it's gonna affect their career and they don't care they're going for it

So we're we're talking about these types of people and I get exposed to them and like this is the manliest This is the toughest. This is the craziest thing I've ever done and we're singing about Jesus and st Michael's smashing the devil to death and like this is like Visceral, you know and this is before you've existed way before and I'm like singing these there's a song called tithami Where we're like singing a hallelujah and I'm putting my hands up and I'm feeling literally feeling the Holy Spirit I'm moved almost to tears but like I'm thinking well, this is just everyone together as me with my brothers I'm having a social experience, you know in music but like no the Holy Spirit's in this room with us so yeah, I'm listening to this band the terror of demons, you know, this band is so sick and

and So that's this Christian metal scene and there are so many bands like this impending doom Holy name for today and they're these bands that are just like literally smashing the devil to pieces like that's Smashing sin being yeah, and they're awesome. I'm gonna work out tomorrow and I'm gonna work out hard to this stuff Yes, I want you to text me and ask me how my workout went. Yeah shame me I'm gonna give you some stuff. I'm gonna make a little mix for you. You have Spotify. Yeah, I'll get you going I'll get you going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the holy workout. Let's talk about Metallica. Let's do it cuz I love Metallica I love Metallica too. I love Metallica. You go. Do you know that I did a

Month where as a joke I wore Metallica shirt every day for a month straight a different one Did anyone find it funny? Yeah, I guess there were people who at first were like why would you do that? You bought And then people started to get into it and they were like I've been sure it I'll send it to you Yeah, yeah, yeah every day I'm posting and so then people started to be like, okay Hold on. This is kind of sick. And then I started getting shirts and It was hilarious and I wore a different shirt every day and I went on a cruise too So I had to wear these I had to pack way too many shirts for the cruise because I'm wearing different shirts But I'm going to the gym. It was hilarious. So I thought it was very funny It was that my friend of mine made fun of me because I owned like five Metallica

t-shirts and he's like, what are you going to wear one every day of the month? And I was like, yeah, actually, actually, I am pushing in. I am. And so I made it happen. I want to recommend if people have never listened to Metallica and they think we're just crazy right now, there's this there's two to what do you say? Instrumentals that I would point you to. One is Orion from Master of Puppets,

which might be one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Yeah. Is it Anesthesia pulling teeth on Ride the Lightning? No, no, no. Yeah, no, no. Maybe. Which was the music? Can you look that up Thursday?

Which was the... I'm having a like, I'm a biggest Metallica fan and I'm not able to answer this question. Was that? I think it is Anesthesia. No, no, Koolaketooloo. Koolaketooloo, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are beautiful.

Hero of the day. The SNM hero of the day. That is so beautiful. Yeah, yeah. SNM is my favorite album they've ever done. You told me that and so I listened to the, most of the album as I was driving home and it is very good.

Very, very, very good. So I got into Metallica right after Load came out. Yeah. So unfortunately I wasn't cool enough to be like, well, I liked him before. I guess the Black album was when they got real big, but. Dang. But then you had to kind of. But yeah, so I started with Master of Puppets. Did you? That's the first thing you heard?

Yeah. Yeah. Even as someone, you know, you're younger than me. I was a small child. The first time I ever met my biological father. I didn't think that you could listen to Metallica when you were seven, but I guess you would. You can. Yeah. I think the first time I ever met my biological father. You can listen to 7 but I guess you would you can't. Yeah, I think the first time I met my biological father, I was like 455 maybe I didn't know him earlier. He didn't leave until he didn't leave my mom until I was like 2, but I don't have memories of him.

And so I remember the first time he picked me up in a Jeep and it didn't have doors. I was like, it's the coolest thing has ever happened to me. This guy rocks You know and he's my dad But that isn't like that isn't hitting me because my stepfather doesn't love or care about me And so I don't understand what a dad even does or is and so he picks me up, and he's very loving He gives me a kiss and I'm like this is crazy this guy likes me a lot

What did I do to make this guy like me and um he gets me in his Jeep no doors cool sing ever I'm like dang this guy sick you know okay cool and he's like buff my father's like a big like Scottish Nordic guy and um he's got a beard a big tattoo on his back I'm like this guy's cool and then he puts on Metallica master Master puppets. Yeah, yeah. In my child ears were like, this is the best thing I've ever heard in my life. This is the toughest, coolest thing. Master puppets is one of their best songs. I played it for my son a few years back

and he didn't get it. He's just like, why are they so angry? That's so funny. Because life sucks, what do you mean why? He's young. But isn't that song about drugs? I don't know. I don't know what it's about.

I've never really looked into it. There's so much to get into with Metallica that I'm also a guy who's like, there are bands that I love and listen to. Albums I listen to monthly for years and I'm like, I like song three. Oh yeah, yeah. Get it. I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taste me, you will see more is all you need dedicated to how I'm killing you. Come crawling faster, obey your master, your life burns faster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that's about it. Maybe I'm it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taste me, you will see more is all you need dedicated to how I'm killing you. Comproling faster, obey your master, your life burns faster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess that's about addiction.

Maybe I'm wrong. I thought it was about addiction. Needlework the way. Oh, there it is. There it is. Life of death becoming clearer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

What's your favorite Metallica song? My favorite Metallica song? Ooh, that's a good question. It's too hard a question. What's one that comes to you? Ride the lightning. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, it's too hard a question. What's why the lightning might you love? Yeah. Ride the lightning. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, definitely too. Lou. Um, good. Yeah. First Metallica console I ever went to, I was 13. Nice. My first one was last year. I thought it was awesome. Yeah. How are they still going?

And tell me what it was like Tom James Hetfield. They're good. So I got to meet James. He's cool, nicest guy. How did you get to meet him? So I'm friends with a guy who is friends with people in the music. So I'm friends with a bunch of people in the music scene and I got to go to a concert to see him and then another friend of mine knows him and was like, oh, you were at that concert. Do you like want to meet him? And so I got to go to like a party the next day? Yeah, yeah, and I like just said hi to him and stuff. It's super nice guy, but like just crazy like the the Concert itself was so good. Like they got it. They still got it. He's his voice is there

You know, they're only getting better I'm I wanted them to of course as we all do I was just like play all the new stuff or old stuff I know none of the new stuff but they played a bunch of the new stuff and I actually like two of the newer albums so it was good but yeah he was really cool sober guy yeah that's and that's why I brought straight edge yes so did you talk to him about that or what no no I didn't get the opportunity to like really talk to him about okay so there what do you know about him? No, no, I didn't get the opportunity to like really talk to him about.

Okay, so there's an example, right? So you've got James Hetfield, who would probably say he's an alcoholic and who has been sober for periods of his life, but then falls back. Yeah. And then you find out he's in rehab and stuff. So would he still be part of the community?

Or how does the community view him? I don't think he became straight edge until later in life. I think he was trying sobriety, trying sobriety, and then eventually he was like I'm straight edge Which is um, it's kind of like it's kind of like a knighthood It's not real but there's something about it that affects you Deeply that kind of is like no I got to do this You know what? I mean? Like I'm I'm a certain way now

Everything's different and I think straight edge has that quality to it. If you like anything, if you take it seriously, I think it's a you know, so I'm hoping, but I think if you're straight edge and you fall off and you and your you have genuine contrition and you're like I've made a horrible mistake, I can be a better person. I'm going to make this right. I personally would like you are still straight edge I mean you're still straight edge and I love you and I want you to be my brother and We can do this together and you should get another straight edge tattoo right now Yeah, I wonder who the guy is out there who has the most straight edge tattoos falling off. I've seen People a lot of trade. I mean I have a bunch of straight edge tattoos. So I have X's on my thumbs

I have a it says SX II, so I have X's on my thumbs. I have it says SXE, which is like the symbol for straight edge. And then I have my neck. So got a bunch. But sobriety is really important to me. It's I think it's helped my life immensely. I can't imagine how it would have gone different.

Yeah, it would not be good. How did you get involved? Well, to tell us how you got involved in comedy, how did that even start? And as you do, would it be okay? And I'm asking really for the people watching, not for you, because I know you don't care if I had a cigar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Second hand straight edge.

Second hand smokes. Let's get a huge cigar going in here. No, no. So I got into comedy because, um, I into comedy because I had all these experiences in my life. I had these very fulfilling experiences and it's kind of sucks to say that they're fulfilling because they were very negative. I was doing crime. I was not a good person, but you know, it would be ridiculous not to be honest

about it and say that like it feels good to have brothers brotherhood and Respect and a thing to work towards and a community and to feel strong and not be protected And we've got your back and have people have your back and then almost even more to have someone else's back men more than anyone Want something to die for. We deeply crave it. We want to die for a reason. We want it so badly. We want our lives to have meaning, but we want our death

to have meaning almost even more. And I think so. And so I think that's one of the obstacles between us and love and trying to be present in life and make our life more meaningful. Cause we're so naturally preoccupied with making our death meaningful that to make your life meaningful is a work. And so anyway, I was like-

I love that this is what you said in response to how did you get started in comedy. It's beautiful. So I'm doing crime, yada, yada, yada, it's very fulfilling, but it it's bad me and my brother together Literally one day just look at each other and we go we gotta go Yeah, so we did we left it something happened that kind of went bad Oh, no, not really just both woke up and we don't want to leave or just like we're not good guys

Yeah, we I don't want to steal. I don't want to hurt people for money I don't want to I don't want to I don't want violence to be The my life is wildly violent from the time of I was a small child until I was in my mid-20s violence is the Is the theme of my life I've experienced been a part of and committed acts of violence in in in extreme ways I've experienced, been a part of, and committed acts of violence in extreme ways. I've seen, I mean, just as much as a person can see.

You can't see more than I have. You just can't, unless you're fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad. Like, truly, so I stopped doing that. I have- Just to pause there for one second, because it is so much more hardcore to be master over your passions

than to allow your passions to master you. Yes. And I think that's kind of what you're seeing in the straight edge community. Yes. I mean, what do I know? I'm not a part of it. No, no, no, totally. But it's like, you know, and

James Hetfield got this right in that some kind of monster documentary where he talked about what it was like in the early years of Metallica, where he get hammered drunk, wake up in some bed next to some woman and how he decided to reform his life and There is something way more powerful and masculine to say I'm gonna be the hammer not the anvil. Yes 100 million percent there's is there a saint who said very rarely do I find

pagans who Who are manly enough to make chastity a priority in their life man? he said very rarely. Do I find pagans who who are manly enough to make chastity a priority in their life and I was like having her so tough, that's so sad. You can find that quote. That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so um that's beautiful. Yeah, it's I think that the stoics were interested in in not drinking too much. They were interested in moderation and discipline. They were also interested in chastity. It's manly to deny your impulses to be in control of yourself, not just for you, but for your

friends and for your family. And so yeah, so I experienced all these things and for all the negatives violence has, it's wildly fulfilling. How so? It's the, it's the, I don't know if I said this to you, I might have said it to Thursday. So there's a thing where people go, I would die for you. And that's a beautiful sentiment. That's a wonderful thing to say to someone. But when you get deeper into it and you live in a world of violence,

I would die for you is not, a dog would die for you. A firefighter is paid to die for you. A police officer, I would hope, would die to save you. The real question is, the real thing, the real message of love that I used to receive was I would kill for you. I would hurt someone for you. I would put an indelible mark on my soul for you.

Who would you hurt for me? That's a scary sort of negative question, but it's also like the implication is I love you so much, I would destroy myself and others to preserve you. I get that. And as a man, that sounds awful in the context of like a gang, maybe or even in the military. That's not what you want. But I think anyone who has a wife or kids feels that a little bit.

Oh, 100 percent. Right. Yeah. Someone hurt my wife. Yeah. Yeah. Or she needed you to. I would. Yeah. If she truly asked you and she meant it and you knew it was what she needed, you would burn the world down. And so, um, let me just quote, here's Augustine. I know nothing, which brings the manly mind down from the heights more than a woman's caresses and that joining of bodies without which one cannot have a wife. That's not the exact quote, but no, that's a good one also. Yeah. Yeah.

I wonder where the guy, it truly is about pagans. If you're looking for it, but what you're saying reminds me of what my mate John Henry said. He's my best mate in the world. He said him and his wife, the first argument they got into that was really bad is when they were dating. He said, if I killed someone, would you help me bury them and not call the police? And she hesitated and he was furious Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah as a friend. You're like yeah, clearly. What'd you do it for you know?

There's a scene and I'm not saying that her answer should have been of course yeah, yeah, yeah, but I get it Yeah, I get it. There's a scene in the movie the town That's so the town the town it was written by Ben Affleck and it's it's this movie about bank robbers in Boston and it's so accurate to what it's like to be in that lifestyle of violence in crime there's a moment when he shows up to his friend and he wants to fight these guy he wants to hurt these guys who threw bottles at his girlfriend but his girlfriend is a secret So he goes to his friend and he goes, we're going to go. I need you to come with me somewhere. We're going to hurt some

people. I can't tell you who they are. I can't tell you why we're going to hurt them. And then he just looks at him and he goes, we can take your car mine. That's that's where you're at. And there's something fulfilling about that and um I think that to derive fulfillment from love and from sincerity and from depth of feeling is so much more rewarding I just want to say that just so people know that I'm not trying to like lionize that's right and I make it sound like I'm passing off like no this is the meaning of life but this is very good it's not good no because yes because I think what the untwisting of that is, is Christ allowing himself to be sacrificed, being nonviolent and allowing violence to befall him for the sake of his loved ones.

You know, yeah. Yeah. So we're not advocating violence. It's just to say that, I mean, obviously, all sin gives us something. If it didn't, we wouldn't do it. Yes Yeah, yeah, yeah, and there's um, you know in every God is everywhere and in There's truth in brotherhood and love and despite the fact that we're doing something so negative that God's not gonna take That truth away from the natural order that is the natural order and love You know is everywhere and if you love someone that you're gonna feel that you know And so so you had a but there was a next sort of repentance between you and your brother when you looked at yourselves

I realized you didn't want to be these people exactly okay, you know and so we just moved away. It was weird. I truly There are times there are pieces of my life my conversion story is one, where I'm kind of like, what was the antecedent? I don't really know what happened. I don't understand, like some external force worked so subtly that I just arrived to this place and I'm kind of like, wait, what? So me and my brother decided to leave, but yeah, and I had this, it was fulfilling.

And I kind of knew where my life was going and who I was and what was important to me me and now I don't and it's tough and it's affecting me in a way that I can't describe. It's it's horrible. I'm I'm miserable. I'm depressed for the first time and I meet a woman and she's the first woman who never hit me or yelled at me or treated me bad and I go. I should be with this woman forever. She's clearly the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know, which is the bare minimum. That's just what all women should do. They shouldn't hit you all the time. At least maybe if I say

one bad thing sometimes as a sure, but like you know she and so I'm kind of like where do I go from here? You know what I'm not. I don't really have a meaning and so I'm like I should go to school, but then I realized like I didn't even graduate high school. I got my GED and I'm like well, I don't know why I'm not. I don't really have a meaning and so I'm like I should go to school, but then I realized like I didn't even graduate high school. I got my GED and I'm like well, I don't have I'm like I don't have a lot going on. I have like an expunged felony which doesn't mean that an employer can't see that it happened. So what is even the point of forgiving it? I guess I can own a gun cool. I like guns. I can. Not that I would, but like it's so whatever. So I'm like, I don't know. No one's hiring me. It's hard to live.

I can't go to college and I'm like, well, I go to trade school and I'm like, well, that costs money. I don't have them living paycheck to page is very poor. And I'm like, I don't even know where to go or what to do. And so I'm like, I should try. Maybe I should get back into music. I'm like, you're not going to get playing hardcore. You're not gonna, or famous. I don't even wanna be famous. I'm not gonna make money doing that.

And then I'm like, well, I like comedy. I like writing. Go write a book. I'm like, well, that's hard. And so I'm like, I'm gonna go perform. I can just, that's something I can do right now. I'm a big fan of the term. Have you ever heard the term perfection

is the enemy of progress? Of course. I love it. So I'm like, let's do something right now about this. Yeah. Let's go. And so I went and did comedy. Now, what, what does that mean? So there's open mics. To be a comedian, you just have to go do an open mic. I know that I want you to lead us through your first time. Okay. So how did you find out it was an open mic? Who did you bring with you? I just look up the comedy club. I assume they have an open mic.

Not all comedy clubs do, by the way. I'm just getting lucky. I look it up as an open mic. It's on Wednesdays. It's at eight PM or whatever. Seven thirty PM. Okay. It's called wise guys. Interesting. All right. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to go this next week. It was like Friday. I'm like, all right, I got this many days till Wednesday. Let's rock it. I start writing jokes. I'm writing jokes. They're bad. I'm writing jokes. I'm watching comedy. I live in my imagination a lot, which is both a blessing and a curse. So I'm like imagining performing and people I'm trying to figure this out. And I write this story about, um, where I used to work at the time. I used to work with disabled kids, uh, who have severe autism or down that they have developmental disabilities,

and so I write the story or well. Actually, I must say I did comedy on like a dare on like a lark one time before and I bombed so badly. It was unreal. The jokes were crass. I can't even recall them to you. I wouldn't. It's embarrassing and I and then I was like this was at a stand up place. This was at a stand up place. This is like five years in my, this is during the time of my life when I was all feeling good. I had fulfillment. I was presumably people who are a lot more, uh, kind of kind and generous to new people doing open mic. No, they're not. They're the worst. But is that usually the case? I don't know. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Comedy is a hazing central. I think it's less so now, but eight, 10 years ago, eight years ago was terrible. So I go, no one laughs. I get made fun of and I left, but it was fine. I'd put it on stage. Yeah. The host came up after me and was like, wow, it was wild. That guy was terrible. Check him out. His next show will be, I think he said it a Penny wise mosh pit at a penny, which is a terrible band. They're like a pop punk band or whatever. You roasted me. I remember it cause it was embarrassing, but I didn't care at the time. You didn't. This is my, it's not my dream. It's not my plan.

I just did this to do it. Okay. Now I'm focused. Yeah. I write this story about, um, helping this kid. Uh, I worked with this kid for the first time and he was allergic to Doritos and I gave him Doritos He asked for them. Okay, and then he pooped in my lap when I was trying to help him Oh, he had cerebral palsy and I tried to put him on the toilet and he Fell into me and pooped all over me and then sneezed on my face. It's a great story. Yeah I told this I'm gonna retell this story eventually to record. Okay, well I can tell it to you but um

I'm here for it if you wanted I think it's online But the I have a much longer and better version of it, but yeah, I so I um, I tell this story And it goes pretty well. Yeah, and my friend Devin who I told you about he went with me. God bless him I love Devin and so um Yeah, after that I was like, okay, I could do this. Wow. I could do this. And it was off to the races. I did not miss a Wednesday. I did not miss one Wednesday for like four years. I went to every open mic. I put so much work in what I'm telling each time. What's that

new content each Wednesday? I'm not new every Wednesday because it commonly you're sort of like you're perfecting You're moving things around and you're trying to learn especially at first a lot of is just learning how to be on stage But like I would write a lot and I still do to this day I write more than I would say 95% of comics and so I write a new hour every year But I write more than a new hour every year because I usually have I have not clean jokes and clean jokes And so I do a little bit of everything but nowadays I'm actually just going to be trying to write everything clean There's my new as of this year my new goal. So um

The content may not be for everybody, but they will be consumable by everybody. Does that make sense? So like, you know, I have jokes where like a lot of people get lit on fire, whatever. Yeah. But so, um, but yeah, I, uh, I did it and I was like, this is good. And I kind of just decided. So what were you doing for work? Four years, never missing a Wednesday. What were you doing? Um, I was working at the is good. And I kind of just decided. So what were you doing for work? Four years, never missing a Wednesday. What were you doing? I was working at the group home. And then I was also bouncing.

Okay. You know, so I was doing that. And so I was working a lot. I was- And you living with your brother or you're on your own? At the time I was living with my girlfriend. Okay. Yeah. And so who I then married, but yeah,

I was living with her. And so, and she was very supportive So it just kind of worked out but I was gone Constant I was working like, you know way more than 40 hours a week on top of doing comedy as much as I could and writing It consumed my whole life I basically gave up all my hobbies in my social life in order to pursue comedy when I was in it Like I said when I make a decision, I'm really good at knowing everything's different now. And that was comedy.

I did it the first night. And you said, I'm going to do this. I'm all in. And I started, I'm very poor at this time. And I said, I'm literally going to forgo eating sometimes so I can save enough money to go to shows on weekends. I want to watch headliners. Every weekend, I would go to shows like it was my job. I would watch like it was my job. I would everything I

could consume. I would consume. I'm very I like to get good at something and I know how to do it and that was me with comedy and I just laid it down and I got good pretty fast so much faster than people normally. I mean, normally people don't get a special until like nine years into their career. I got good pretty fast, so much faster than people normally. I mean, what normally people don't get a special until like nine years into their career. I got my first special almost close to four years in. So is this on dry bar drive are my dry bar special and I wrote my dry bar special. I started writing it a little after three years in. So that's crazy.

Like I think most comics would hear that and be mad at me. They like you don't deserve it. You didn't pay your dues and stuff and I kind of didn't but to go every Wednesday for four years. Yeah, yeah on top of other ones too. Yeah, I smashed through every I mean yeah like and I truly did give up my hobbies and my and one of the greatest choice of the last Two years of my life has been getting to a place in comedy where I'm happy. I don't care to be famous I just want to not check my bank account when I eat That's my big goal and I'm there baby. It's awesome. And so um now I'm

Rediscovering my hobbies. It's this beautiful thing where I get to like paint my little war hammer guys and skate and surf. And now I'm going to mass way too much. Like people are like, what are you doing at church all the time? And I'm like, I do this thing called adoration where I just kind of sit there and I, I weep a little bit. And I, I talk to a guy that's not there, but he is there you wouldn't get it You know and then also his son is there he's there for real though Like yeah, I mean the people I know who've done stand-up comedy say that the drug and the sex scene is wild Yeah, how do you never raise that or crazy?

Had you never get it? How do you plan on navigating it it I had I've had so much practice my whole life I mean I used to be hanging out with Gangsters they drink and do hard drugs all the time. It's a huge part of all of that One of the reasons I was so successful in my former life is because people would be like oh Shane's not gonna steal Your stuff Shane's gonna do exactly what you need him be like oh Shane's not gonna steal your stuff Shane's gonna do exactly what you need him to do and he's always gonna be ready to do it Because I never have to worry about him being sober Yeah

and I had another friend who was sober and him and I were like the go-to and So I mean a lot of what we would end up doing because of that is robbing drug dealers I spent an immense amount of time doing that and we were very good at it. And so, yeah, I just, so I got into comedy and I was like child's play. Firstly, you guys aren't murderers, so you can't pressure me to do anything I don't wanna do. And I think it was a boon

because I was just always ready for whatever. I was never doing anything wild to embarrass myself or like crazy. I mean people get drunk and make mistakes or do drugs or get in trouble or miss things. I was never trying to go party. It ended up being great for me, but I mean that's not the case for everybody. A lot of people get into the comedy scene fine and get out worse for the wear. Well, this particular person who shall rename nameless said that the concern is if you're not engaging in these things, then you're not climbing the ranks.

You're not getting to know the people you might know in order to become famous. True. I find that I can go to these places with these people and engage still and because I grew up around crime and drugs and hard drugs, like the, when these people are doing, you know, not, they're doing worse than what, you know, is normal, but not the worst possible, which is what I have witnessed. So I'm comfortable in that environment, or I'm not necessarily comfortable, but I'm not moved and I'm not weird

You know and so I'm I'm a rock, you know, and so I was able to do that and they would just be blown away Yeah, you know, it was almost like a positive for me But yeah, that is true If you're a person like who has sensibilities where you might be worried about that kind of stuff it can affect you I think the comedy scene is so diverse now in terms of lifestyles That you can do better without I think if you have a deeper version to drinking and being around drinking you're gonna struggle That's the one that's like almost non-negotiable So if you can't hang at the bar

You're in big trouble, which is I think yeah, it's a barrier for some people. All right. So who what is dry bar and how did you first make contact with them? Dry bar is is a subsidiary of Angel Studios. Yeah. Angel Studios does clean flicks. Are they used to? I know the head guy. Yeah. Yeah, so um Yeah, they started with VidAngel which turned into VidAngel So in Utah you used to go there would be Hollywood video and then there would be like the VidAngel Clean Flicks place and

That's where Mormon girls would want to go on a date because they had a theater room for kids But it was monitored by an adult. It's actually a really good idea and I say kids I mean teenagers. And so that you're not like necking or going crazy. And then the movies are made watchable. So you can watch Silence of the Lambs. Well, this is a crazy, I don't know how that would work, but because Mormons aren't allowed to watch

rated R movies most of the time. I think as Catholics, we're like, yeah, drink a little, smuggle a little smug little rated our movie But just know that this is what's in there and make your own decisions and I love that I think this is a true church and we're correct about everything Pretty badass the way that Mormons crush the family thing. They crush the sobriety thing We have a lot to learn from right, right and I'm from Utah So a lot of my you know goings on and understanding of things is

Through interacting with my Mormon friends and girl friends. I've had and things But yeah, they would so you would go to the clean flicks place or whatever and then you'd watch last samurai And there'd be a mysterious five minutes removed from it. I don't know what that was about but yeah And yeah, so they ran that place and so then they decide they want to make their own content I assume yeah, and then go. We should do some comedy, so they start dry bar dry bar, starts doing kind of good and it's all clean comedy and it's kind of hard to find clean comics at the time. Now, dry bars so successful that every comics like I'll write a clean fifteen. I got

it and so there's this guy named Keith Stubbs. He owns wise guys in Salt Lake City, Utah. I O Keith my career. I love him like a brother and a father He's one of the most important people in my life Keith I'm gonna clip this and just show it to you so you can see me telling thousands of people how great you are Keith stubs a Truly good man. Love him. He despite me being dirty at the time and kind of a wild man in the comedy scene He goes do you want to do a dry bar I the charitableness and the kindness and the

belief in me to ask me to do this is so beyond what I can even comprehend now it's so cool of him to do this I go I can do it and he's like can you be clean you have to be clean I go I do this. I have a clean 45 minutes and he goes awesome. I did not have a clean 45 minutes cycle. All right. I gotta start writing this. So I went on tour with a guy named Aaron Woodall, who's another beautiful, wonderful, great person who took a chance on me and took me on tour with him and I work on this clean

chance on me and took me on tour with him and I work on this clean time and I write it and it's crushing and I go it's actually not hard to write clean you just simply don't swear don't say gross stuff yeah and I'm like yeah it's not hard I don't like comics have a struggle with this do they have rules about what they mean regarding yeah yeah they're cleaner than clean yeah because they give you a little video before you do it where they're like no swearing, no whatever. They're like, no, we don't want you to talk about like hard drug use and stuff. We don't want you to disparage your wife. Shout out Mormons. Yeah, let's go guys. That's I remember watching that in a, in some people being like, oh yeah.

And I was like, even back then as an eight of 10 atheist or whatever, I was like, no, that rocks. And ten atheist or whatever I was like no that rocks and so Yeah, so it's cleaner than clean, but I I nail it. I'm like okay. I got this. I got a 45 minutes I show up I film it the audience loves it I'm like yeah, this is what's up, and I kind of think well. I made it real quick Do you have to perform the 45 minutes to be accepted? No, they just trust that you just claim trust. They just try. I think they trust Keith.

I see. Yeah. And they're filming it. And so I guess if things went off the rails, they just wouldn't publish it or something. I know for a fact, many people who have filmed their specials will never and have never been released. OK, because they either made mistakes or it wasn't good or it wasn't clean. Yeah. And there are comics who are like Edgy and lame and contrarian. It's so dorky to be like yeah, I'm cool I do whatever I want and get up there and say something Inappropriate and then you get a laugh at the time because you're all in the room together and you're having a good time and being

Inappropriate is fun sometimes that's not what you're being paid to do and they're not gonna publish it guy Yeah, and then you go they left I don't know why you can't put it out there, because they didn't ask you to make people laugh. They asked you to be clean and make people laugh. Be a professional, but anyway, that's a whole nother topic. So, well, I mean, it's a great marketing idea

because it's very cheap, presumably, right? People love watching a comedy special, and they love trusting that it's gonna be clean. I know I do. Yeah, if someone tells you it's gonna be, and you have that night, yeah. Yeah, I'd love to go on a date night there. I they love trusting that it's going to be clean. I know I do. Yeah. So when tells you it's going to be, and you have that night. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to go on a date night there. Like I'd love to bring my wife there. I'd be really disappointed if a guy got up there and was, Hey, when I film my next one, please do come through. I have seats for you. Um, so yeah,

it's going to be, so I go, I do it. It's great. I'm like blown away, but I think in my mind, well, I just made a little money and then this is nothing. Yeah, I wrote this this year. Whatever I and then it just went viral, you know And here I am like when when did you realize this is doing better than usual? Um, I realized it was doing better than usual when someone posted the video to read it and it had like it was on the front Page of reddit. Yeah, and I'm not like a reddit guy I also think that website is evil But it's on the front page right and I go whoa And then I remember like cooking with Babish is that the guy this YouTube the famous YouTube cooking guy was like

Top key was the top comment being like this is really good. I can't believe he didn't swear and I'm just like What this is crazy and that was it I like got like 10,000 Instagram followers overnight I was like binging with Babish there it is yeah dude so I was just blown away yeah that was that yeah so it that off to races you know did you get an agent do you have a website where people can book you how did that I didn't have a website for a long time um I did get an I didn't get an agent I had like clubs be like do you want to come play the club and the very first club to ask me to play

was American Comedy Company, shout out to American Comedy Company in San Diego. They asked me to come play. I go. Oh my gosh, not the first place. I headline the first place to ask me to come out of town to headline, because my first headlining was in wise guys for Keith again, the man. So I go to American Comedy Company. I headline it's this incredible experience. People show up. I'm blown away by this. Then an agent messages me and he does a thing called a hip pocketing, which is when an agent is like yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to get you gigs and I'm going to make you some money, but like I have no to get you gigs and I'm going to make you some money.

But like I have no obligation to you. You we're not signing a contract. I'll just get you gigs and you give me the money you owe me because I get you the gigs. And if I don't want you anymore, no problem. And this is what most agents do could show businesses evil and awful and terrible. And so I did that for a while. I'm not, I'm not seeing why it's evil right now. I mean, I get, I believe you don't get me wrong, but if someone's coming to you and they're like, if I get you a gig, you owe

me this much percent of whatever you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't seem well, but the idea is that you live in this limbo where if you don't do what they say, they can just get rid of you. There's no contract sign. There's no relationship where they were buying. They believe in you. They'd know, no, you are an afterthought. And if you make them mad, if you say no, the impetus, the implication I mean, is that they're just going to discard you like trash. You are in their hip pocket. So there's fear there. There's worry. There's not no investment from them. It's awful. And these agencies are terrible. So yeah, that's awful. And so I had him help

me out. And I mean, like, that's another thing about show business and living in America or maybe in life where you get opportunities from people and you're so thankful, but also they're awful It's this weird Amalgamation where you're taking the bad with the good and I'm thankful to this man for offering me these shows But he's also taking advantage of me But also I need him and also that was nice of him to reach out to me and I want this job But I feel so bad and I you know it's like this whole thing and so yeah he was my first agent and and then I got a writing agent and then I bombed a audition for SNL my writing agent was like I'm never gonna talk to

you again you had to go into SNL to put to I didn't go there I I did an interview to be a writer and I got a call back and like we love you this is so great and we talked for a while and then they were like write us one more or two more things And I wrote them two more things, but I was in the pros my I had relationship problems at the time and they were so devastating that I Wrote the last thing I was supposed to write SNL an hour before it was due and it was predictably bad Is it true that SNL can take whatever you've sent them and use it for their own I don't think they're supposed to but I've heard rumors they do

Yeah, but I mean they crank out so much content like it would it makes sense that they would I mean they should just pay and or would. I mean they should just pay and or credit people. I guess I don't know, but I've heard rumors that this happens. I don't know for sure I, but I have heard rumors from other comics and of course the internet that they just like take skits. I know for sure that they see like a tick talk sketch and they go. This is a funny concept and then they make it their own and people get mad at that and I'm like who what who cares? I don't know. I that doesn't bother me

But so you decided you didn't want to be a writer you kind of knew that though ahead of time I want to be a writer but writers rooms are stacked with college graduates It's kind of a club and if you haven't graduated from college, you don't get to write They're not gonna hire you unless you know someone and even then they're usually going to pick the person with the college education over you. One of the reasons a lot of comedy shows are hot garbage trash is because their writers room stacked with college graduates that aren't funny. They're not stand ups. It's insane not to high. Hey, I'm professionally funny. People literally pay to see what I wrote

I perform it. Can I please write on your TV show or your cartoon or whatever? Nah, I'm gonna hire this guy from a Harvard who has a creative writing Background I think he's silly and you're like, okay Well your show sucks and everyone hates it and it did one season in his bad. So yeah, you know, I don't like yes And no, I don't watch it. Yeah, sometimes tell me about something and I watch it and I go one season and is bad. So cool. Yeah, you know, I don't like SNL. I don't watch it. People sometimes tell me about something and I watch it and I go, oh, I can see why that's funny. But if you ever say that, it's not funny.

Yeah. And then I try to watch the things that my wife watched growing up, but it's almost like the time has passed and I'm in a different generation now. So I don't really find that funny either. I can appreciate certain characters, but I don't really find that funny.

I think some guests are good. I've seen SNL do well I'm not a huge fan But if anyone from SNL is watching I do want a job and I actually love the show and if I was on it I would honor it. I mean but for real though. Yeah, um, but yeah, I would like to write because Stand-up comedy and touring is like so stressful so much travel so difficult very lonely very very very very lonely and then um it's it's also like am I gonna have money this year how much how much am I gonna perform I gotta

get this how much our flights gonna be like there was one year like last year flights were like three times what they were in 2021 or whatever it's So like now I've lost tens of thousands of dollars flying all over. So that's going to affect my bottom line. So when you write, you have a salary and health insurance and you have a schedule and you're working on your terms. I would think that comedians would get paid a decent amount of money to come and perform.

They can. Yeah. I do often. Sometimes. I do often, but like there's still, even when you have a lot of money or you're making a lot of money or you're doing well, the bottom can fall out like that, it could it could all be over tomorrow for me.

You know what I mean? I'm very aware of that. Why it happens. It just happens to comics. You know, I could fall out of favor for some reason. I could. Is that what? Yeah. Yeah. Amy Schumer, Dane Cook and some of these people fell out when they were so famous and rich That it didn't matter, but it can't happen. I know comics who tore Who don't tour anymore?

They just kind of had people stop going to their shows over time and they just stopped doing as well And then they just kind of do other stuff. So now it can happen. I thought was just awful whenever she would just cringe and would stop it almost immediately because it wasn't funny at all. And it was like five seconds before she's talking about her genitals. Why did she fall out of favor, though? I don't I think the reason Cook reason, I think she just got out of touch. She just became out of touch.

Didn't Dan Cook get accused of joke stealing? Wasn't that everyone has been that famous?. I mean Amy got accused of joke stealing I think people prove she stole jokes. Ah Pretty pretty decisively. I think that's like a non-negotiable. That's like a reality. So Yeah, it's just weird. She I think she fell out of You begin to perform for your audience over and over again Yeah, and you can fall out of touch and there's also I think an amount of humbleness you begin to perform for your audience over and over again, and you can fall out of touch, and there's also, I think, an amount of humbleness you need to maintain. Okay, that comics, you know, they start to fall out of that.

They start to wear their own merch and believe in their own story, and everyone around them becomes afraid to criticize them, and you know that happens to famous people. That's that's a trap you can fall into. It's incredibly dangerous, and if all your friends. That's that's a trap you can fall into. It's incredibly dangerous. And if all your friends are comics, that's bad. You need to live. Pete Holmes said something that stuck with me when I was a very young comic. He said you should live a life worth commenting on.

Oh, that's good. And my comedy is very autobiographical. So that's like a lot to comment on. Totally. You get to open up a world that very few. Well, maybe more than we think that a lot of people wouldn't have no any yeah. Yeah, I think so and in my in my comedy, especially I it's cool that I can talk about like some wild story and then you know, a housewife is like well that

appeals to me because I have had a time where I was this crazy person or this adversity in my life or whatever, and I overcame it and I see myself in you and it's like inspirational and I'm like, well, that's an unintended consequence of me trying to make you chuckle cool. I forget who it was who said he likes comedians. I think it may have been oh, who's the black hilarious comedian who just did a special while you're describing a lot of guys. And offended the trans community. Chappelle, Dave Chappelle.

Chappelle, he's brilliant. And he said something, I think it was him, it might not be, but he said, I like comedians who make you feel like everything's gonna be okay. Yeah. And like Norm was like that, right? Yeah. Like you would listen to him and you would laugh

and you'd like, okay, things are gonna be okay. And I think Chappelle's like that. I think Mulaney is a really good example of that, John Mulaney. So, okay, what do you think it takes to be? Is there a certain theme among bad comedians? You like, oh, they all kind of exhibit in authenticity. OK, inauthentic.

You need to be authentic because that's why hacky comedians get famous. That's why you can watch a bad comedian do well. Very often, that's their authentic self and people Naturally gravitate towards authenticity. So if you're a cornball Goofy dad joke bad comedy guy and you see someone else authentically doing that. That's your guy I don't like him. I'm never gonna name names, but like I don't like him. I think he's corny and bad I think that comedy sucks but that's authentic he's authentic he's not trying to sound like somebody else exactly or I would say that every once in a while someone

inauthentic slips through because show business is evil and so much of it is nepotism and if they just there are times when they decide you're famous before you're famous and they make it happen Okay, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do and so um That is that's a problem with any like sort of political type of organization not politically, you know politics in terms of any group You're in or any community you're a part of yeah, so That when there's a fella who I find hilarious on Dry Bar called Chad Thornsberry.

Mm-hmm. And maybe that's, I don't know, who you're referring to. I know, I know. But the fact that he is just so, just himself, he doesn't seem like he's trying to be somebody else, and he's just downright hilarious, and he doesn't kind of dress up for the event,

he dresses like he seems like he would dress, is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. I kind of dress up for the event. He dresses like he seems like he would dress. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. I used to dress up. I used to wear a collared shirt and sort of just try to take the edge off of how I look. And I had this moment where I go, I would have a dress show,

I would bring an outfit for the show. And I had one day where I just said, nah, I don't do that anymore. I just, whatever I'm in that day, I'll perform in pajamas if that where I just said no, I don't do that anymore Yeah, I just whatever I'm in that day I'll perform in pajamas if that's what I was wearing before I don't care and I realized that authenticity is the is is the Non-negotiable part of being truly funny. Yeah, because it's your authentic self that's relatable if you're trying to appease everybody Yes, you know relating to anybody and one 100% and then it's the worst comics

look like a guy doing impression of what he thinks a comic is like. Excellent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you don't like that and I think that even people subconsciously pick up on that. Could you imagine trying to be Noah McDonald? Like trying to... People do it. It's bad. Yeah. It's really bad. It's really, really bad. So I love Brian Regan. Brian Regan's great. He's so famous in Utah. It's bad. Yeah. It's really bad. It's really, really bad. So. I love Brian Regan. Brian Regan's great. He's so famous in Utah.

It's crazy how famous he is where I'm from. Did he grow up? Is he Mormon or? I have no idea. That's the thing when someone's so popular in Utah, everyone's like, is he Mormon? People say about me, they go, is he Mormon? I go, no, before I was Catholic,

I was culturally Jewish, I guess. Yeah. But not really not really your mom Jewish. My mom is adopted, but her biological parents are Jewish or biological family has. So she's I'm Jewish like I went to Israel, you know, and stuff to do like whatever they do if you're Jewish. So like I'm that Jewish, but like I'm not Jewish enough for like like orthodox people hate me. You know there's a saying and then this is

probably controversial, but whatever there's a saying that Jewish enough for the Nazis, but not Jewish enough for the Jews. Wow yeah yeah yeah so and that was my experience. I've never had a lot of luck with the Jewish other Jewish people. I they've been kind to me here and there, but like I've tried had a lot of luck with the Jewish other Jewish people. They've been kind to me here and there, but like I've tried to go to a synagogue and had them be really like, what are you doing here? Like really weird with me and like kind of unkind. And I live in an ultra Orthodox neighborhood.

Now is it because of their representative? Is it because of how you look, they respond to you that way? Cause how would they know you didn't kind of grow up? I don't know. There are Jews who have lots of tattoos. I mean, they're devout. There's something cool about Judaism not wanting you though. Right?

Isn't there? Yeah, we don't really want converts. We don't take you. I know there's supposedly a rabbi turns you away three times if you try to convert. Yeah, I don't know. Cool story about mother Natalia having to do with the three times. Interesting.

I was at her final profession and when they enter the monastery, they don't cut their hair until their final profession. And I want to say it was like eight or nine years before she made her final profession. So a lion's mane. Oh, it's down past her butt. So she and her fellow sister are in this like white garment. And for the first time, I see her hair and it's all the way down, right? And so she walks up and she takes this golden pair

of scissors and she gives it to the bishop who's gonna cut the hair and he takes it and he throws it down the aisle. And she has to walk and get it three times before he taunts her. That's incredible. That's good. That's like something about that's so beautiful.

Yeah. And sure, sure you wanna do this. Now, our CIA is a little like that. It's not like Catholics are going to baptize you or bring you into the church right away. No, it turns out. Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole thing. I want to get to that. I want to get to more of your faith journey. Yeah. I want to take a little pause.

We're going to take a quick break here, but I want to tell everybody watching right now. We are really close to 500000 subscribers. Honestly, I used to I used to like getting the subscribers because it felt good to have that many subscribers. But but honestly, it allows me to maybe bring bigger names in and other people who otherwise wouldn't come on. So I'd really appreciate it if you would subscribe. Click that bell button if you like the show.

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These are great. Yeah. You like them? student bill made him really Yeah, just a local. I love that now listen Tell us about this sword on your face because I know what has to do with the Lord of the Rings That's right Want to know how that happens so when you got excited enough about Lord of the Rings to be like I'd like that on my head And so I'm a huge Lord of the Rings guy when I was young I read The Hobbit

That was the first my introduction good, which is good. You don't want to read the Lord of the Rings first You won't go hobbit first So I read the Hobbit and I was like, oh everything's different now is one of those moments and We must have been so young Nine, so I love it. So you I mean I was a reader I was like, okay like you Matilda have you ever seen that movie? Yeah, like I read a Crazy amount. Yeah We used to have this reading program in at the middle school Where if you like write a book you could take a test on it

If you pass the test you got points and I read every book in the library Every book like I read like 50 plus books a year now. That is remark. Yeah, I love to read So I like crush so, um, the Lord of the Rings is huge for me So I read The Hobbit and then I read Lord of the Rings and I was like, okay Well, how old were you when you're in I read Lord of the Rings when I was like 11 or 12 amazing. Yeah Yeah, yeah, so I remember being excited about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings at the same time Yeah, and then I kind of got farther into Harry Potter. I read Lord of the Rings and I read Return of the King. I'm gonna finish it and I go,

oh, okay, so this is what literature could be? I'm out. Or fantasy, you know, like, okay. Yeah, Harry, she's a good writer, don't you? Harry Potter's very well written. And I'm sure it's a great story. But once you've read The Lord of the Rings or Dostoevsky, it's very difficult to go backwards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of it. Then I read Wheel of Time. And then I'm reading also and I'm like, okay, come on, we, this is it, you know? And so, I'm reading this stuff and, uh, in Lord of the Rings is great. Then I found out about the Silmarillion and I read it and it's kind of like the Bible. I'm like, I gotta read this slow and like, I gotta think about it. I gotta read it. You know, when you read and you get like, um, you get on autopilot and you finish a page, you go, I gotta go back. Yeah.

I gotta reread that page. Dang it. I was imagining. That's why I hate listening to audio books because my mind always drifts. And then I, it's not as easy to return to where you were. Whereas with the pages, you kind of know where you drift. Yeah. Sometimes I get so into it that I'm, I'm not even thinking about something else. I'm like in the world. I can induce day dreams. When I was a kid, I I literally had a problem with it where they like you daydream too much and now as an adult, I can like just sit with music and daydream. He was

impossible to punish me as a child. You would like go sit in the corner and I would like awesome. I'm just going to go to dream world where like my daydreams are real to me it's an actual medical condition so anyway I love so I'm there you know and so you know I read Lord of the Rings I read this somewhere really and I'm having to read it and then stop and the Silmarillion is beautiful and Tolkien's extended works the history of Middle Earth similar all these things. They're so wonderful because they're told in a history, like a historian in Middle Earth talking about ages gone by.

It's like two steps removed. It's perfect. I remember the first time I read, you know, what is it on concerning Hobbits, like the first chapter of the Lord of the Rings. You read it and they're like, whoa, is there a lot that I've missed out on? Because you just get thrown immersed into the world.

It's so good. So these histories, they give you just enough that you can sit with it and imagine it, almost like reading about Caesar's campaign in Gaul, almost like reading about Alexander, you know, all these events that I think are so like Charlemagne and and I'm just like Imagining how else is happening and it's like firing me up And so Lord of the Rings changes my life and it becomes this thing that I'm crazy obsessed with and I consume everything

I'm reading it Tolkien's letters. I'm going online and looking for like Xeroxes of all his letters. I'm going nuts on it Every piece of Tolkien content. I'm reading fan fiction. I'm playing video games. So I go nuts for Tolkien the movies come out They're all right They're pretty good. They take out Well, it's kind of like what we're doing about like great author next to mediocre or yes like that if you've tasted the pure beauty of Tolkien Yeah, watching anything even if it approximated better than something else, is nothing. Yeah, yeah, something, but not enough.

So I enjoy these things. And so I used to have a friend with a gun tattoo on his face and he was a scary guy in that he's very tough, a very, very scary guy. And so I always thought it was He's very tough, a very, very scary guy, and so I always thought it was funny to have tough guy tattoos and so, which is why I have a lot of nerdy tattoos almost as like I don't even need to try. You guys are being ridiculous, and so I always joked that I would get a sword like you have the gun, I'm gonna get a sword. I'll sword you bro.

And so I got older and my first special does great. And my second special comes out and it's good too. And there was this moment in my life where I thought when my second special comes out, my career is over. It will not do good. And I will simply vanish into the night. Right.

And everything will be over and that'll be fine. I'm still to this day kind of like it'll be okay when I go back to a regular job. This has been more than I could ever imagine I would get and so I do the second one and it does even better. I'm like I got a reward myself and I'm like you know it's the craziest thing I've ever wanted a sword on my face and then I go, you know what else talking? What is this after the first drive our special? Yeah, so you didn't have, I didn't have the sword until after. So I got, I got and a roll tattooed on my face of the shards of Narsil.

Yeah, and so I got it. I love it. It's my favorite. Most people think it's a think it's a cross, which I'm a happy. I think it's like a dual meaning almost it's sick. So yeah, big token fan, big token fan. I love token and then I have the witch king tattooed on me and I've got the tree of gondor tattooed on me. Big fan of token love all of his work and he was another in road in the falsism for me, you know, and then he of all of his work and he was another in road in the falsism for me, you know, and then he hated allegory, but you can't help but see how he was affected and in like, you know, there's guys like toll costs, the Valar who defeats morgoth. And even though he's just a minor Valar and not a Lou Vittar, he takes down the

dark lord, how you can't compare that to Michael, St. Michael, I don't know. Yeah, so I've heard that he hated allegory. I understand that. And I can see, I can actually sympathize with it. When I read C.S. Lewis's work, sometimes it feels too much on the nose. It's still his kid fiction, I mean.

But you read the first chapter of the Silmarillion and how is that not allegory for the creation story? Or maybe it's not, maybe not as allegory because it just is a creation story. I think it's Europe's pagan past mixed with its Christian future because a Louvatar isn't pure love. I don't think, I think that he loves his creations,

but he's very hands off. He created the Valar and he kind of left the Valar to their own devices on Arda and our God is very present in all of our lives and also we're made in his image. Erulu Vitar, he created elves first and dwarves aren't even a creation of eru their creation of man way who wanted to He wanted to copy his father. He wanted to create life as well. That's the story man way and Melkor who or morgoth as he's later called they are Parallels because they both want to create like their father

Parallels because they both want to create like their father But one creates sees the error of his ways Accepts his father's love and forgiveness and moves on so he creates the dwarves He creates seven dwarves, but they can only be alive when he's around he can't quite create life He can get close, but he can't quite. And so Eru finds him and goes, what are you doing with these weird little naked bearded guys? These guys are wild. You made these what the heck? And so, and then he's like, you, Hey, you can't do this. And in man was like my bad. I just thought I would try that. They can't even do anything when I'm not around. And Eru goes, I take pity on these,

even do anything when I'm not around and Eru goes I take pity on these these creatures and I he breathes life into the dwarfs and so um he allows the dwarfs to exist but they only exist because Manwe of Valar wanted them to and because Eru took pity on them he saw like well these are a creation my grandsons and I will I'll love them and breathe life into them. So now they're a whole thing, which is why they are kind of like elves. They're more powerful than humans, which are sort of the end all be all of a Ruth plan for Arda. So anyway, Melkor wants to create right. He becomes discordant as they sing the song of creation. I always like to imagine they're like singing these beautiful hymns and Melkor's like you know, like and then and then a bunch of of course the Valar fall with Melkor

and which is the creation story. It's pretty spot on and so Melkor creates, but he can't quite create either, but he twists. He gets around needing air to breathe life into his creations by twisting them and making them evil. And so he makes orcs and all these other foul things. And then there's interesting things that you don't consider, like the fact that tree ants are a living representation of nature.

And they're a beautiful representation of nature, where're like a beautiful representation of nature where Trolls they turn to stone their representation of not of rock of nothing They're like a twisted sense of nature Because n's return to the trees trolls return to the rock like and so anyway, there's you got all this stuff and Milk was creating milk or is he distorting? He's distort It's not quite clear if he's creating new things Tolkien often says he's distorting what has been so I always have the impression that the orcs would kind of distorted elves

Is that not the case that is there's two schools of thought? I think he kind of retconned himself and then on retcon himself and there's letters. So there are people who think that they're distorted elves and there are people who think that they are twisted creations of life, and so it's hard to tell and there are different types of orcs and and there are half orcs, which is an implication that we don't even need to consider because it's very bad but another reason that Tolkien kind of Quite didn't do Christianity in his world. It's because he's dealing with

Very little gray area. It's it's total and complete pure Unredeemable evil versus good whereas our God No one is unredeemable evil versus good Whereas our god is no one is unredeemable Yeah, so um, I think that's a beautiful distinction and it's kind of an interesting It's what makes it fantasy is that there is pure irredeemable evil versus good and now You're ontologically evil and we can fight you with everything we have. And that's an interesting thing to think about. But yeah, it's so in with many Catholics getting super pumped about talking. Yeah, I love Tolga.

He's my guy. So but yeah, I let Orcsir yeah, twisted elves. I like to think that he he found elves and some unfortunate elves when they were made during the creation because they lived in darkness at first. Um, the world had no light for a time and the elves lived in darkness and they had like this colony and they were afraid of the trees. They didn't quite understand what's going on. Milk or was in there and he was plucking him up and so he created the first group of orcs and then those elves who are themselves magical and capable of great deeds and in sort of creation in a way, they propagated

what later becomes the orcs and how and why they do it as a mystery to all of us. And so we don't really understand. And I kind of think it's better that way. Yeah, so yeah, awesome Yeah, yeah Well, I want to get into your faith story before I do I want to say that I am so excited to share with all Y'all watching that the College of st Joseph the worker is now officially certified and accepting applications for the 2024 academic year based right here in downtown Stupendale, Ohio the college offers one simplified program so you can graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Catholic Studies, training in a skilled trade, the opportunity for a well-paid job and no crippling debt.

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College of St. Joseph.com. So you're becoming a Catholic. I am in deep into the process. So I know you said that faith was something that happened to you. Yeah, I think that- What did that say? I made a choice.

But I think the antecedent, like what led up to it was kind of like oh hold on here I'm very open to this and this is kind of going on in my life What happened to kind of soften my heart and get me here? Yeah so I mean my Conversion story I mean to we'll try to I'll try to give you like the beginning to the end of my ideas about God and then we'll get to conversion. So beginning a really bad childhood, really really bad. Um, and my mom had two separate phases. I remember distinctly where she was Christian and we were going to church and we had a, this, that painting everyone sees of Jesus knocking on a door. Yeah. Have you seen that? Yeah. So that's that image is

burned into my brain. He was always in our home right there. So again, ethnically Jewish, but like my mom had these Christian phases and I also you my first job ever as a small child was packing envelopes for an evangelical anti abortion center and sending out letters I don't know I didn't understand as a child I do remember me and the other kids who helped there because the guy who owned it his sons worked there that's how I end up working there we's Xerox our butts and we got we

all got big trouble for that he was like it's not that you did it. It's that your butts were on my machine and they were and it was really funny. What a cool guy. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so we had these phases, um, where went to church, but I never was baptized. My mom wanted me to make the choice and I was a little older. So she was like, you're not a baby. I think you're old enough that I want you to make the choice. So she would kind of like tell me about who Jesus was. And I would go to classes as a kid, but they were like Baptist and Baptist classes for kids are pretty much about the actual Bible. You don't learn a lot about like faith and what God means in your life and prayer. learn like what was Noah up to how old was he that's crazy that kind of stuff you know yeah and so I got like a

biblical education I did not get a faith education and then I had that and then we did one more when I was like 9 to 11 and that one there was this this Baptist preacher who would lived in a trailer and he would go in a van and pick up everyone who wanted to come to church who didn't have a car. God bless him. What an amazing guy. And him and his family would take everyone and then they would go back to his trailer and he had this thing where all of his stuff would move.

He would push everything he owned to two sides of his like big trailer and like their beds and stuff and like this big living room area and then that would become the pulpit and then they would have a screen and they would do it and then the kids would be in this area and it's not mass baptist church. It's very like they separate kids and adults and you do the whatever. So I would go to the kids classes and then he would have like his older daughter ran the kids class. So this whole family just had their own little church, pretty sick, actually pretty daughter ran the kids class. So this whole family just had their own little

church, pretty sick, actually pretty cool for them, and so I had that and I got more of a faith education there sort of just like whatever, but I don't know. I remember kind of just being like I'm going to get breakfast today. That's cool, I guess, and they might give me food after, so I was more like food. I was food motivated like a dog. I was food motivated and so then I stopped going to that. I just never thought about it. I was a child. Life is very hard. I a lot of bad things happen to me. You know, I was

neglected and then my new stepfather came and he was very abusive in ways that are I be. I was tortured as a child. Basically, you know, me and my brothers used to be made to fist fight each other when we had just because we would have to fight You know, I I you know feet smash or the hammer type stuff is the worst stuff you can imagine And so I became very mad at God and I used to have this I Wanted to be an atheist, but I also bad things would happen and my instinct would be to ask God for help. Then I realized I only ever want to talk to God when I need help. And I hated that. Ooh, it bothered me. It made me mad, made me feel weak. It made me feel stupid

and it made me be like, God is this sucks. What is God even about? I only talk to him when I'm in trouble. So I remember making a distinct Choice as a child never to ask God for help if I was in trouble I would think about him just naturally in innate thought but I would like no I refuse to ask you I Refuse to ask you for help. No, I know It doesn't matter if you ask her, you know, he's there whether obviously I'm thinking about him but so I Endure this life of violence and it's pretty rough and I make it out the other end and now I'm into philosophy I'm into the new atheist. I do Zen. Ooh, that's cool. I'm into self-help or whatever. Um

Watch everything Hitchens ever does read the god delusion I actually didn't like the book thought it was bad But I I'm doing that and then I go from being like a staunch like Mad at everyone atheist to kind of like a what am I doing? This sucks moments are the nicest people that I've ever met They took care of me when I was a kid and fed me the nice people that I've ever met. They took care of me when I was a kid and fed me. You know, I what am I mad about? So I decide I'm an eight to ten atheist. That's what I'm doing now. I'm doing that thing and so then over time I become a euro. What a fiesta in eight of ten. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, which is

such a stupid way of just saying I'm agnostic, you know, but whatever. So it's the idea that I'm an atheist. I'm still like I'm a philosopher and an intellectual But maybe you know, come on. You're an agnostic at that point You're just afraid to say you're afraid of the concept of God admit it and so um, I Do that and I become more and more open to things and I start to make Muslim friends I'm very good friends with so many of my Mormon friends who never lost their faith. They kept faith in God and then they have beautiful families and stuff and I'm kind of like now I'm so deep into punk rock and alt culture and it's wildly hedonistic. It's full of people who are angry at

everyone for not thinking like them but also simultaneously mad at everyone for not thinking like them, but also simultaneously mad at everyone for not being open-minded enough. And they're miserable. All these people are miserable. They're like trying to promote this lifestyle where hedonism and doing what you want and self-care and all this other stuff is the point. This is the point of life is to be happy.

And as long as you don't hurt anyone who cares and all this other stuff But they're miserable then you you look at them deeper and you go you you're like deeply sad. There's no fulfillment So I'm like, okay something's going on and I I start to reconsider sort of my views about life and this kind of thing in my Alternative culture and what I've been a part of. And then I start to move more towards like, all right, well, maybe God is good and it's goodness. And I just sort of be open to it.

And like maybe magic is real ghosts are real. I start to just open up to like, you know, just whatever spirituality and stuff. And then that's where I sit for a long time, just sort of like comfortable in the idea that the supernatural is real and that's where I sit for a long time, just sort of like comfortable in the idea that the supernatural is real and that's okay. And maybe people are having religious experiences and maybe they're good and I think that's good. Now I come around and I go religion is good.

It's better than it's bad. I believe that. So last year my grandfather passed away. Now my grandfather is the most important person in my life He was um He's the best man I've ever known. He's a truly good man a saint. I'm not joking. He was true goodness in he Grew up a Swiss immigrant. He fought in World War two. He married his wife after knowing her for not very long. He stayed with her for 55 years, took care of her when she was sick

till she died. Um, he got, he married another woman after he passed away. She got sick, took care of her until she died. Never let his children down, never let his wife down, never spoke ill of anybody. It was kind to he ever met, was so good to me. I remember, remember how I told you that I would go to, I went to Christmas and my step grandparents purposefully didn't get me gifts. My grandfather made sure every birthday and every Christmas to get me and my brothers the exact same thing

so that we were never better or worse than the other. You could count on $ dollars and that remote control car or every Christmas we would all get the same thing. He would never forget any of us. If he took one of us on a trip, he would take each of us individually or all of us together. He was perfectly fair. Truly the kindest man. Good. He grew up a conservative immigrant from Switzerland,

never once asked me about my tattoos, never asked me about weird hair, piercings or any of my phases. He loved me unconditionally. He never made me feel awkward. He never questioned me truly such a good man. So I love him and he's so important to me. We become very close at the near the end of his life when I'm more of a man, you know, because when I was young, I was all over the place. I never really hung out with him. So he's very old. He lived to be almost a hundred and one. So he begins to die and I go, well, I don't care about my work. I don't care about my career. I don't care about my job. I'm moving to Utah to be with him as he dies. So I

moved to Utah, me and my brother and my mom making our mission to be with him as much as possible till he passes away. He's by the way, so unreal tough, the toughest man I've ever met. He worked like 13 hours a day for like 50 something years was in the dairy workers union. He'd been working and since he was like thirteen full time job crazy guy, so he has a heart attack at like a ninety nine or a hundred years. He had a heart attack at a hundred years old. We were like oh he's dead. I go to just see him right before he dies, makes a full recovery and then they're like well he's not a hospice. He's clearly gonna die. His pacemaker stopped working so he should just die any day now and my he just refuses to die. He was fine. He's walking around now

He recovered totally we're like What no, you're supposed to be dead, man Just go you want to die because he would be like I should have died like 15 years ago No one I know is alive. You guys don't need me here. So i'm just like, all right So he told me that I was like just die and he was like dying is a choice and I refused to make it. God can come get me, so I was like woo all right. The Japanese weren't going to get him. No one was you know, and so he was hardcore and so he lives for like six months and

And so he lives for like six months and finally he passes away. We're all with him He passes away peacefully it's beautiful I thought I was gonna I thought my whole world was gonna end and I just felt kind of at peace with it We had so much preparation and he was so brave so courageous in death that there was I Just as a man Couldn't allow myself to fall into despair in any way so he was cognizant the whole time cognizant right up until the last two days Truly so courageous that I just couldn't be Affected in a I couldn't fall into despair of course. I was sad. I I wept and all these other things but like no despair

Interesting. I remember asking my mom I go should we get him a priest which is a weird thing to even think of I don't know why I thought of it and she goes no, I don't think so and I was like, okay and so um Later I'm having these like he passes away and we're all fine. We stay together as a family. We're doing well We're staying strong and everything's going good and I begin to have these weird dreams about going to church and just like Talking to people who aren't there and like alright, that's odd to have that more than once. I don't dream a lot I'm not a big dreamer. I'm a daydreamer, you know, that's where I get all my dreaming done so I'm like that big dreamer. I'm a daydreamer, you know, that's where I get all my dreaming done so I'm like that's odd and um, I'm like compelled to go to church in a way that I don't know how to describe, you know how when you're single and you see a very beautiful woman, you're like

Like you're drawn to speak to her in a way. Um, that's how I feel. I'm like this is Insane. I've never even why would I go to church? I have a very good life. I don't care and so it's like odd I'm like having this feeling like I need to go and I start to like Read about church and i'm just kind of like looking i'm like, why would I feel this way? I like to if I feel something I like to ask myself questions and go through it very Point by point. So i'm I'm like okay it's weird whatever and then I'm like starting to just feel like during the

day like you should go to church you should and I'm imagining this one time I went to a Catholic church I just went in and I had like a kind of a beautiful experience and I thought these are just beautiful people and this is an ancient beautiful place that was what that was so I'm like I should go I should go and I'm thinking about it and I'm like, I go to this doctor's appointment one day And I'm leaving and I'm in like Provo, Utah, and I'm like I'm gonna go to church. It's like noon I was like I should just go to one. I should I'm just gonna do it. Whatever I'm

Compelled I'm not it's wild how this poll has me. I don't why am I thinking about this? It's an It's wild how this poll has me. I don't why am I thinking about this? It's an intrusive thought that's so powerful So I'm like, alright fine. I go I look up a church on my phone and there's like a Catholic Church down the road Now mind you I have no idea how this works in my mind. I'm like, it's gonna be closed I guess I'll just go and then we close and I'm home free. I did it. I show up It's a Catholic Church is open. There's people in there, you know, there's people in there. I think they might've been doing adoration in some like I'm kind of walking and I'm like, I don't know where to go. And I walk into the chapel and I'm like, all right. And then there's like, you know, all these Hispanic women and then they have veils on and they're like in deep prayer. And I'm like, yeah, I

know I'm like, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, Ooh, intimidating, you know, scary. I don't know what I don't want to interrupt them. So I'm like yeah, yeah, and I'm like ooh, Intimidating, you know, it's scary. I don't know what I don't want to interrupt them. So I'm like trying to creep into the thing and I like take a seat in the back and I sit at the pew and I kind of look up and I just go now what and I'm kind of like what am I doing here and I like all right, let's do it. Let's let's just do it and I put the the kneeler down and I get on my knees and I put my hands up and I'm Just looking at the cross. I'm looking at Jesus on the cross and and I just start to cry and I have this insane like like I'm not looking at anything

I don't mean to be like I know it sucks when it's in it's almost embarrassing to be like Oh, my conversion story is like, I had a supernatural experience, but like, because some people don't, I know a lot of Catholics who are like, Oh man, am I like, you have this whole thing and then you have a supernatural story. I just feel good about it. You know? And it's like, but that's not it. It's I don't know. It just it is what it is I I think God gives you what you need. Yeah, you know and and he gives you just enough You know your free will is so important. He loves you without free will there's no love So you have to give just enough I think this is my theory that your free will maintains

So you always need to be able to make the choice you always have to make the choice every minute of every day every hour Every hour every morning when you wake up There's a choice to make and if you get too much you're gonna make that choice anymore And it doesn't become a choice, you know, and so I'm like, okay And I have this crazy experience like this blinding light and then I just start to weep and I just feel like I'm not alone. And I've been alone my whole life. I'm alone a lot. I'm alone when I'm around lots of people.

I feel alone on stage. I felt alone in my childhood and I'm weeping and I'm crying and then I look over and Mary is there and it's over for me. I am now. Is this a statue or a vision? A statue. Sorry, yeah, this's a statue of Mary

and and I have a vision of her I'm not seeing her literally but she's like superimposed in my memory to the point where I'm seeing her in front of me and And she's she's the mother and and it's this like feminine energy in this. It's this pure love and it's like something I like. I don't even know how to ex. I don't know how to explain it. I truly don't. And it's like it's the experience with a mother I'd never had and I needed and

I just started crying like so hard that these these like Hispanic women like what the heck and you people are looking over like it's everything alright and I'm just like, you know full like heaving sobs and Everyone's cool about it though. It just like this is a woman looks over. It's like yeah, it makes sense I just like keeps praying the rosary, you know, and um It was so funny to have everyone kind of like look at me at once and I was like didn't even care You probably had some powerful prayers coming for those Hispanic grandma. Yeah me I yeah, I in that the concept of someone praying for someone else never occurred to me my whole life until

Recently, you know, and so I'm crying, I'm having this vision of Mary and she's like, I'm like bathed in warm love and it's this experience that's so earth shattering and it's the moment everything is different. Now it's one of my few everything is different now moments and I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, okay, that was the craziest thing and I I'm I'm talking to God And I'm saying like, you know, I'm so sorry. I want to be better. These are all my faults Well, this is where I've been and what I've done like do you love me like and um, I It's just I just feel loved for the first time ever in a way that I truly

have never felt and I needed and I leave and Immediately, I'm like fighting this I'm like, okay. Well, I just had like a psychedelic experience I just I just had an experience and I had some bad steak I had some whatever and so I go home and I don't tell my brother anybody about it and I can't stop thinking about it and I'm on. I'm just thinking about Mary and I keep like getting emotional, just imagining her like I keep hearing her say I love you and it's so real and it's so it's just like so powerful.

It's so hard to describe how it feels. I just she just keeps telling me she loves me and it's like hard to I'm to get emotional now even thinking about it. It's just it's so pure and so good and so special and she's so perfect. And as the first time I'd ever seen a woman and felt that way. I see women and I have problems with lust and I have problems with you know our culture I've brought in it. You know you see women in in such a way and I'm seeing this person and I'm just seeing her as like a whole person and a

woman for the first time in a very pure way and I keep seeing her and she keeps reassuring me that she loves me and it's like it's so beautiful. I'm like okay all right fine fine. I'll I'm going to go again. I'll go to church again one more time and now we will see we will see and so um I before I go to church, I talked to my mom and the conversation was nothing about Christianity. I don't remember how she said it, but she said, yeah, grandpa was Catholic. He disliked the church, I think. And I go, huh, a lot of Catholics do. It's okay. I had no idea that my grandfather was Catholic. He was baptized Catholic. He obviously went to Catholic schools

a child or he went to he he went to church He might have been confirmed. I don't know my grandfather's Catholic Okay, weird. And so now I'm like In mind he's not my biological grandfather. He's my grandfather. And so he's Catholic this this blows my mind I was just in a Catholic Church Mary keeps appearing to me and telling me she loves me in my imagination. This blows my mind. I was just in a Catholic Church. Mary keeps appearing to me and telling me she loves me in my imagination. This is freaking me out and so I'm like all right fine, and so I look up a talk one day while I'm driving and it's funny because I actually got a ticket so I wasn't paying attention and his father Mike Schmitz. I got a ticket.

That guy owes me eighty dollars. I ran a stop sign not thinking Yeah, yeah, let him know I he owes me $80. It was it was like a rolling stop But anyway in the talk he was talking about I just loaded up like some talk And I just clicked on the first one and I just wanted to like I don't learn It well I had no specific questions and it was it was by Providence was randomly a talk about praying for the dead, which is a concept I was like, what in the world? And so you can, you Catholics pray for the dead and he talks about these Bible verses and how it's like a great, a beautiful thing. It's something I can't remember his name in the Bible. He's at a graveyard and he's praying for the dead and the dead pray for us and that makes a lot of sense to me I'm like okay pray for the dead and so then I realized I'm gonna go to church

and pray for my grandfather I'm gonna talk to him and so I do it I go to church and I go to the the main church in Salt Lake City downtown the cathedral the cathedral yeah yeah and it's the Madeline and it's like this huge beautiful. It's Beautiful church, you know I walk in I'm kind of nervous and I'm like a great it's open now I have to go Anita and I'm getting in there and I go sit down and there's a lot of people in this one and They're all just praying and I'm like, alright, what's going on with this? I sit down and I'm like, alright Let's give it a spin and I'm like the cynical right, what's going on with this? I sit down and I'm like, all right, let's give it a spin. And I'm like, the cynical parts of me are fighting everything. I sit down and I go, hello, Grandpa.

And I start weeping immediately. And I'm like, I just hope you're OK. You know, I I think about you and I'm praying for him. And I was like, is that you? You know, are you telling me to go to church? Like, is Mary with you? What's going on up there? I don't even understand how this all works And I was like am I supposed to be here like this what you want for me is this stupid am I just am I another?

Person who's like you know the story is like oh, it's something bad happened And I became Christian, and it's just like it's so embarrassing leave my brain at the door. Yeah, yeah Feel better exactly he just did this because he wants to make sense of this and I'm like, I don't want to be that person. I'm rational. I'm, but this is real. This is happening to me and I'm like, you know, I'm like, if this is, I don't know if it's what you want for me, if you're praying for me or whatever, but like I'm here, is this, is this good? You know? And then I'm like, you know see if cause up there take care of him and it's like affecting me a lot and

And I have another experience and then Mary's there and she's like is okay You're okay and Jesus is that you know, and I'm like feeling all this and I and it's incredibly real It's it's so real that it's like You know, I've done psychedelic drugs that it's not that it's it's One more step stop doing acid go to church You're about to have some wild real stuff happen to you and I'm I'm like touched You know like in a way that is Physical it's real. I'm I'm this is happening to me and I I leave and

I was like, all right, I'm Catholic now, I guess. And at that point, I'm like, well, I got to pray and I got to change my life. And my life is I am sinning up a storm in my whole life, but especially recently, you know, like my my life is one big sin and so I'm like I got to change, you know, and I'm like I got to I got to do something and I'm like all right, so I got to read about the church. I got to figure this out. I think catholicism is is it. This is my grandmother telling me, you know, I didn't have vision I didn't I felt compelled for this and I'm a I'm a big rational guy I'm a huge on history

So I start to read about the history of the church and I'm getting deep into it I'm reading about you know the Pope's and and the Catechism and the church church's teachings and they're falling in line with all these things. I believe separate from the church about how we should live socially and how we should share wealth and how should take care of each other and and and now I'm seeing like I've dedicated my life a lot of my life to politics and I don't really want to talk about them, but the politics, and I don't really want to talk about them, but the church is doing things that I advocate for on a real material level.

There are missions with young people inside of them that are feeding the homeless. They are no phones. They're living, they're doing real stuff for real people. They're giving people hope, you know? And that's way more than I can say for these political organizations I was involved with or thinking about or no one in secular is doing what the church is doing you know and I'm like wow is powerful this isn't faith this is a material thing I can touch and feel and see this.

And then I'm, I'm reading more about the church and I'm reading about Mary and, and I learned how to do the Hail Mary's and now I'm, this is becoming so important to me and I'm learning about the saints and, and then I figure out I'm like, I should watch more videos. Mike Schmitz got me. That's a good video. I'm looking up him. Who's this Matt frat guy? He looks dorky, you know, and then pints of the quietest and then some of your guests deeply affect me and I start to learn and then I run into apologists. I run into, um, forget it. Not Trent Horn, though I do like trying Tim Staples, Jimmy Akin, Jimmy Akin is the man. Jimmy Aiken, you absolute hero. Jimmy Aiken, I've consumed, we will send this to him, 50 hours of Jimmy Aiken speaking. I've read all of his books.

I am, I crush Jimmy Aiken content. He speaks so kindly and so beautifully and with so much charity Kindly and so beautifully and with so much charity and I'm so used to Jesus being this like do it or you go to hell in Catholics are I just feel this charitability in the spirit of Jesus in the church and the kindness and though in There's this thing in politics and I don't mean to keep bringing it back there, but they were a big part of my life But where um, especially liberals They were a big part of my life, but where especially liberals Whatever I had you can go into it. I'm not a fan Okay, I'm not a fan of either side but liberals especially are very annoying because they want to be right. They don't want to win

The Catholic Church wants to win Your soul is on the line people eating is on the line people's mental health is on the line. People eating is on the line. People's mental health is on the line. People's world is on the line and the church is willing to come down to people and meet them. Jimmy doesn't talk to you. He doesn't talk down to you. Many Catholics I've seen that talk to people aren't telling you you're going to go to hell. They're telling you you're saved. That's a huge difference from how I perceived Christianity. Catholics are telling you, you are saved, I love you, Jesus loves you, we are here for you. Other people are saying you are bad. Giving people the good news, you know, love is how you win, and so I'm seeing this and I'm like, yes, this is what I'm about. This is aligning.

This is crazy. This is all falling into place and, um, and it's all coming together. And I'm like, yeah, this is crazy. And in the meantime, I'm praying and I'm, I'm trying to like undo all these sinful things I'm doing, you know? And I'm like, all right, we got to defeat lust and you know It's funny. I actually read your book Man, yeah way before I knew who you were. Yeah, I read it again

I'm the guy who likes the the album and I go like song three. Yeah, I read your book I didn't know your name or your work. I just read the book And I had a hunch that porn was bad. I read your book and I was like, okay It's a porn is evil, but I was still, I convinced myself like, oh, well, certain porn is good because it's made by the creator, whatever. And, um, and I realized like, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna do this all the way. Like the church sets these things out. And even if it's in my mind, even if it's not right about something,

I have nothing to lose by following that tenant The my it's so obvious to me that this is a positive way to live that even if it's wrong about something Even if we get it wrong, sometimes it's going to as a whole make me a better person You know, I'm gonna be on your deathbed wishing you washed more porn. Yes. Wasting your life. Yes. It doesn't matter if the church is wrong about that. What matters is the whole of what we got going on is correct. I think it is right.

Yeah. Wildly right about that to be clear. Wildly right. But so I not only stop watching porn, I start unlusting my Instagram and. I just any image of a woman who is who who I would be ashamed for Mary to see. I start to like Mary's working in my life to heal my problems with women and to make me see how the things I didn't even know were negative. I was feeling and I'm removing

these things and I find myself loving my sisters more and I say sisters just in terms of all women everywhere and it's healing me in a way that I didn't even know I needed and um and it's it's tangible so much of what the church is doing is working through me literally because I have faith but now I have this direction you know I've been exposed to solo scriptura. No, there's more. There's the whole of the church in these things are healing my life. And so I see you and I'm reading these guys and I'm like, OK, this is awesome. And I start going to R.C.I.A.

And I've just like I've just crushed out. I've read so many books, Matt. I've read so much like Gregory Pines Scott on like Trent Horn all these guys Aquinas and And now I'm seeing in the church that like the church does this beautiful thing where they're like, do you want you want logic? Hey, guess what? Believe in the Big Bang or argue in creationism We think it's beautiful for you to have your opinion and we want you to disseminate that that's God giving you logic Put it to use Do you want to see a Saints bones? This is a tangible real person that do you want to have an experience?

Here you go. These are our Saints. These are what they did These are people to look up to, to aspire to. These are the rules. This is how you can be better. This is, you know, and it's, it's tangible. I can grab onto it. Do you love song? Here's some Gregorian chanting. Do you want, um, do you want to just like feel good with people your age? Here's some guitar mass with these people. Do you want to feel connected to your ancestors in a way that transcends space and time and makes you feel close in the love you have for your brothers from thousands of years ago? Here's Latin Mass. They felt that deep like, you know, Joan of Arc went to Latin Mass.

Me and Joan of Arc know what it, we both know what it feels like to go to Latin Mass. That is an incredible feeling. That's something that is, is, transcends time and space. That's something you can't find in our culture. To, that's real real she knew exactly how it feels to see these people say those words and do those actions there is nothing different about her and i's experience she's a saint you know what i mean like that's and i look up to her that i've read about her even secularly so these are all things that i'm like the church is like do you want that you have it oh do you want art look at this beautiful we'll draw you in with beauty. We believe in beauty and art and Do you like history? We have all this stuff for you. Do you like people who admit their mistakes? We were wrong

Here's an evil pope. Here's and guess what the church survived Guess what the church is all of us and we in in it can't be stopped guess what? The church is all of us and we in and in it can't be stopped because we're all together and like these are all just so beautiful and like even just me being way into heavy metal. Then the church is like, Hey, did you know that all of heavy metal imagery is just the concept of momentum or he stolen? Do you know that the black metal is cool? Did you know that the most heavy metal building on earth is a church made of bones and we run it? Like that, it's just everything about you realize how much of culture, you know, and

now I'm crisis everywhere and and I'm being so affected by all these people and all these things and everything is different and um It's just changed my life in a way That is so permanent and so beautiful and so tangible that i'm like, oh That's why christians are annoying. That's why they're trying to tell me about it. That's why people are sharing it and i'm almost like Had I heard jimmy aiken 10 years ago and I'm almost like had I heard Jimmy Akin ten years ago, I don't know that I could have resisted.

I don't know that I could have seen him speak so charitably, so beautifully, so kindly, so logically, so with so much authority because he's just speaking the truth. If I would have been able to like not listen, I would have at least had a hunch that I had to like look into this and so yeah, it's just this beautiful experience that I've I'm just so so thankful for and then it just makes me emotional even to think like it took me so long to get To this point and I'm almost so afraid of like had I not gotten here. Yeah, but like You know I have But also I am here and God knew I would get here.

So it's just this beautiful thing. And then I learned about the concept of free will. I had I was so angry at God for letting evil happen. But you don't understand. Then you stop and think about logically and you think about God and the natural order of the world and how it has to exist so that free will can be maintained and then to think about like I imagine myself as a father trying to Sorry, it's you know, like I'm a father

How difficult it would be to allow my children the space and breadth to learn with free will, you know, to watch them make a mistake. You go no, no, no, no, I'm not going to let you burn yourself. It's hot. Don't touch it ever. I would I if you burn yourself, it physically hurts me forgot to love us so much that he puts us in a place in a time where he allows us to exercise free well in such a total and absolute way is is the definition of love to me and I see that all the things I hated about him are actually reasons I love him and it just makes sense and I'm almost like what happens next do I share this do I go places that's why I messaged you I

messaged many other people because I'm like I have to Be honest with myself about this and let people know like we're doing it together Like you're doing something really important And I know for a fact you have days where you're like, this is a silly podcast and i'm up to nothing or This is about my pride or this is about you. I feel famous and then you catch yourself and you go, ooh, that

sucks. That's a lame guy thing to think or you know, because I feel those things with comedy and I go no stop, but you doubt yourself and like you're doing something really good and you're working in people's lives without even knowing it as am I as are we all and That's you were made in God's image and God works in our lives the same way and We're doing a little piece of God's work by affecting each other Separate from our material being right here, you know, and that's like so beautiful And I want to make sure people know that they're doing that.

That's a part of why I like message you even why we're here right now is because I was like oh, I love this guy. He's doing something incredible and he needs to like be reassured. I need reassurance so much. It's hilarious how much reassurance I need. I mean even just going to mass with you I needed the reassurance from Jesus I've literally had like a Marian experience and I still need Jesus to come down and be like I Have you you're safe and I love you and you're forgiven and it's all gonna be okay, you know So we're so imperfect and so silly Yeah, and so now I'm a Catholic.

I'm working on it. Do you know the two patron saints? There might be more, but at least two patron saints of France, us and Joan of Arc and Therese of Lisieux. Yeah. And so I'm looking at your face and I'm seeing Therese of Lisieux in the Rose, but also the sword, the Joan of Arc, who Therese of Lisieux admired, obviously as a French woman and dressed up as yes Yes, I got to go to her. Yeah. Um, I talked to a priest

Weta father Weta. Yeah, um, and he's so funny very amazing guy He's the last live streamer before Mike Schmitz we had on the show people should check that out Please put a link to this because just real quick put a link to this Thursday because I don't I think people like who is This guy and so they didn't watch it. Yeah. But then when people watched it, they were like, I love this man so much. I can't even tell you. And the video is doing really well because he's so beautiful. And I was driving home from Seek and my wife started watching it.

She just grabbed my arm while I'm driving, which is not a good idea. She just could not stand how much she loved this fellow. He's so cool. So he sits next to me, has no idea who I am. Just sits next to me. has no idea who I am. Just sits next to me. He goes, we're talking, he goes, do you're a comedian? And he goes, I have a lot of questions for you. And we start talking and I say something to him

that he really likes and he pulls out a pen and paper and he goes, I'm gonna take a note. He goes, no, I'm not gonna take a note, that's lame. I just wanna talk to you, just wanna have a conversation. And then I say something else, he goes, I'm gonna have to take that note. And he's so funny, he's so kind, it's so cool, so profound. We had a really good conversation,

but he stands up and he's about to leave and he goes, what does that rose mean? And I go, it has no meaning, I just got it because it's cool, which is true. I just got it because I like it. And I just wanted to like fill out that space, I just thought it would be cool. And he goes, can I give it meaning?

He asked me permission, I said, give it meaning, and I will That's the meaning I will for the rest of my life. That will be the meaning of this Rose shoot. And he goes, that's St. Teresa of Liz. Those Rose century. So Liz. Oh, so this is her roads. Praise God. Yeah. I was like, all right, there we go. Ah, praise the Lord, man. It's beautiful. How excited are you to make your first confession one day? Oh, man. I know. I found the Boniface is going to be the priest. I would love to. That's a good one. I should. I'm going to obviously I'm going to get baptized and I've never been. So I'm told that I don't have to do confession until after I'm baptized. All right. Of course. And I may. And

then I have to. That's right. I I confess after that so I was like, oh good I've got a lot of stuff to say it's not that I would be afraid to confess any any sin, but I just who has that much time No, that's beautiful that you get to be baptized and just release it all. Yeah start from scratch He's there. I was talking to my RC I director and she was like, yeah Are you going to be back? So I was going to be RCI director and she was like, yeah, I'm going to be back. So I was going to be baptized in Brooklyn, New York, but I'm moving. And so I'm going to have to get a letter and stuff and transfer over to Utah where I think I'll be baptized. But if that doesn't work out, I'll fly back to Brooklyn and be back to saying we can do that. Oh yeah.

I mean, cool little milk cart mission here. I would, if you guys would baptize me, I won't. But Father Peter absolutely would, wouldn't he? Although I think that might make you milk, I Catholic, give you Eastern. But maybe you want that. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, as long as I'm Catholic, we'll talk about it. I would very much like to do that. All right. Let's stay in touch. Let's stay in touch over it.

Yeah. Would it be OK if we took questions from our local support? Please, please. Jeff says his story kind of Let's stay in touch over it. Yeah. Would it be okay if we took questions from our local supporters? Please. Please. Jeff says his story kind of reminds me of Father Calloway's conversion. He might enjoy his conversion story on YouTube. I've watched it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy, the hippie surfing priest kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kicked out of Japan by the government.

How has literature influenced your comedy and your conversion asks Sarah? Any authors you particularly admire or draw influence from? There are a lot of authors. I mean, Frank Herbert, like Dune, obviously huge for me, really big fan of that. Robert A. Heinlein, who wrote Starship Troopers. That's a big one as far as science fiction goes. Yeah, there's, let's see, Robert Jordan from the Wheel of Time, obviously Tolkien

literature affected my conversion. I don't know that it did. I think that as I was the two between after I went to church for the first time and tried to pray and had that experience, the couple days in between where I really fought it, which is crazy to think back on, that I could have that experience, the power of cynical, of cynicism is so great

and so ingrained, especially if you grow up secular and you wanna resist. I was just so, during that time. I was kind of like oh Tolkien is Catholic. That's right. Oh my grandfather is Catholic. Oh My ex-girlfriend is Catholic. I really love her. I think she's a beautiful good person Oh this person is Catholic or this writer or this poet and it was sort of like this weird like dummy Listen, you know like and so I mean that is a way that a literature affected it, but as far as my comedy goes, I don't know that literature is a thing. I guess I tell stories and so I try

hard to make my comedy feel like a campfire. Sorry, when you're boy scouts, that's really what I'm going for. I want it to feel like we're me and you are at this table and I'm telling you, even if it's 500 people. So Aquinas Pius says, Shane, you mentioned that you have a love for the Blessed Virgin Mary for a long time due to my lack of faith and devotion. I felt ashamed to call her my heavenly mother.

I can recall crying while praying the memorari. If you don't mind what initially drew you into Our lady and I think you may have just shared that yeah yeah take another stab at it. I mean it really was for no reason. I didn't know anything about her. I just know of like paintings. I know her historically. I saw her in church and she simply reached out to me and revealed herself to me in a very real way. And that's her thing, right? That's what she does. She, she, she just, I, I could not, I didn't even know Marian apparitions were a thing. I'd never heard of that. I didn't know people had those experiences.

So after I had it to understand that it's a thing that happens was another just so affirming, like how can we all be feeling this? How can someone who didn't even know it was possible then have an experience of someone else who talks, like that's, makes no sense. That's impossible truly. And so yeah, it was her. She just was like, hey, by the way, I love you. I'm your heavenly mother. I'm here for you. And I was like,

okay, I'm crying a lot now. Tony RVA says, Shane, thank you for sharing your story. Who was the most impactful in your journey towards Christ? What advice do you have for those of us who love the Lord and want to help others find him? Who's the most impactful? You know, it's funny. It might be like Christopher Hitchens, who just clearly wanted to be a good person and wanted to be a champion for reason, and I

took every talk he ever said and stuff, but without him, I just wouldn't have kept God so present in my mind. They are fighting a losing battle by keeping God in the conversation. I truly believe the new atheists are responsible for the resurgence of Christianity. Currently, I think that without them, apathy is death to remain apathetic is how the kingdom of heaven loses. The devil is about apathy. What is it? Exorcist say to have an encounter with a demon is actually a blessing because it strengthens your faith, right? That was real. This happened to me and it might have been a negative experience and there's bad things about that, obviously, but how can you not believe now?

Yeah, in a way the new atheists sort of kind of we collectively went down this road where we all gave the middle finger to God and said all the worst things we could possibly say. And now that's kind of boring. We've done that like we know where that ends. So we've done that all. So there's nothing you can invite me to in that regard that I we haven't already been to perhaps. I don't think the new atheists shuffled us towards the hedonism and the progressiveness

for progressive sake and the negative things our society is up to right now. I think without them, god disappears from the conversation and we move into hedonism. Yeah, we moved into hedonism with god very present in the conversation and granted many of us sided with the new atheist, but god was still in the conversation and he many of us sided with the new atheist, but god was still in the conversation and he remains so and apathy is is the negative and so without him, I don't consider god for the entirety of my life. I don't come to become open to

spirituality. I don't tell my mom yeah go surreal because she thinks go surreal and open myself up to that experience. I don't open myself up to spirituality. So, yeah, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens, my man, I bet he's in heaven right now going, oh, embarrassing or not, or not in heaven. I hope he is. Mike T says, Shane, welcome, brother. My very non-serious question for you. Yeah, I love it. Since converting to Catholicism, have you had to revise your strategies in magic, the gathering at all to better align with the faith? well, um I don't play blue, so I'm not a bad person

So no, I don't have I have not had to revise anything Ralph Raymond says as our society is increasingly engulfed in entertainment Do you feel that comics have become today's modern-day philosophers? That's the thing people say a lot and it shouldn't. It shouldn't happen. The comics are so stupid. They're so there's there. It should be Andrew Willard Jones. That's the philosophy. I genuinely think I understand that comedians are cathartic for people and important and that because we're funny when we're sincere and authentic, that resonates very deeply and it's beautiful and good. I mean I watch you know I've seen podcasts with

comedians that were so impactful and meaningful to me or or just seeing them on stage get real for a second. I even do a joke and say something that really mattered and you know what Metallica got a lot of guff for writing a soft song on one of their albums, and then the idea though was you realize you have this soft beautiful song and it makes the next thing heavier. Yeah, it makes the next thing hit harder, and then you realize the juxtaposition is beautiful and they go together and that's comedy and philosophy. The philosophy is hitting a harder because of the juxtaposition, not because it's good or true or important. And so maybe comedians are like

philosophers in popular culture, but the philosophers should be the philosophers read meditations. I'm begging you read Aquinas. I'm begging you like, you know, pick up Scott Hawn Hahn Seinfeld's great but in honestly one of the Titans who should be very important father Gregory pine Yeah, read and look at him talk. What an eloquent beautiful person Yeah, he is. I love I I saw him and didn't say I don't cause too nervous Yeah, well, we'll introduce you to him one day. Alex Weir has two questions both of which are exciting. The first is, what impressive thing do you like to do in your free time?

Impressive. Don't you work out really hard? I work out really hard. I'm getting close to, I hope to bench 315 this year, which is a goal that not a lot of people get to. I run quite a bit. I run ultra marathons when I can. Yeah, I'm pretty strong.

I'm like dead lifting like close to five hundred right now and I weigh like two hundred. Wow! So that's decent. Very I skate. I'm pretty good at skating. I surf. I'm not a good surfer, but I'm brave, which is half of surfing. Yeah, yeah, I'm a decent shooter to I'm doing a little three gun this year, probably. So, um, yeah, well, here's the next cool question. What's the least impressive thing that you do? Oh, the least impressive, even the most embarrassing hobby you could admit to. So I have a giant board game collection.

I love board games. The board games I play are like historical in nature and very complicated. Yeah, I'm talking about you would love my next door neighbor Mike Welker He teaches economics and math at the university. Oh, he's got more board games than any man should I have a room of board games? Okay, well, so I'd like to would love each other. I wish you could stay longer. You got to come and visit So I uh, yeah, I um, I have a lot of board games and a lot of them are so complicated that I don't have friends who could or would dedicate the time to learn them and even if they did, it wouldn't be fun to play against them until they these

are games you have to think about while you're not playing to be good. And so I play board games by myself very often. I'll just play both sides just to see what's going to happen. What's one of your favorite ball games? One of my favorite board games right now? Oh, that's a good question. It's called Conflict of Heroes and it's a game derived from advanced squad leader. Another game I really like is technically well known as the hardest game of all time. Yeah, it's it's like game of all time. Yeah, it's it's like a historical simulation of World War II where like the are the front armor and the slope of a tank matters. Like this is

amazing a lot going on here. Yeah, yeah. The morale of the troops of the squad taken from this battalion in this army at this time is taken into account as you're pushing pieces around and yeah Well, this person says not really a question, but I just want to say that I'll be praying for you Oh, thank you for being who you are and being open to our Lord, especially in such a public way That was from Aidan McCoy. Thank you for being a local support Aidan But I wanted to ask you and I like what do you think there's gonna be any repercussions? Yes coming out of the closet here Absolutely. What will they be? Do you suspect I am ready for them? I obviously I, this is a, you asked me and I jumped at the chance and I

prayed on it a lot and I decided that my faith should be a part of my life, my public life because authenticity is important. I can't even imagine that I'm not going to do comedy about my faith. And so, um, yeah, I think the repercussions will be significant, not all negative. Um, I've had a lot of positivity. I've had a lot of people be really cool to me. I've had a lot of Christians come and be like, that's so beautiful and be interested in my content.

Mind you, if you're Christian and you're coming, you should know the body of my work is not holy. It's more positive, because I've lived a life and I was a very intense sinner, and I'm definitely changing that. And my content from here on out will be consumable by all Catholics everywhere forever. And that is a thing I am doing for sure.

But the consequences are going to be like, I think a lot of my peers are going to be weird. I think I'm going to lose out on certain opportunities. I'm going to say no to things that I don't agree with. I'm going to say no to supporting things. I don't want to support that's going to affect me. People are going to random people who aren't my peers like fans and stuff are going to leave and they're going to scold me. I think people already have attacked me for it, not even being catholic because I have not really made it public that I'm being Catholic. This is definitely that,

but I've here and there just talked about how I'm going to church, being open to God and people have interpreted that as whatever they want, and they've been some people have been very vile, so I'm going to deal with that. I'm going to there's gonna be a lot of atheists who are going to want to debate me, which I'm open to. I will crush you, um, and then there's I and then there's going to be people who And then there's I and then there's going to be people who are going to infer certain things. I believe politically because the church is true and I support the church and I and the church's teachings and some of those aren't

popular and that is going to cause me grief. It's I love I had someone be like someone who figured out I was going to be Catholic sent me him didn't send me a message. They made a post and they were like, I don't believe this guy. I don't trust anything. This guy says this guy's not becoming Catholic for real. This is fake and I wanted to be like, yeah, that's the move in Hollywood to go from being Jewish to Catholic in the progressive liberal Hollywood. That's exactly the move. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get out here, especially like, yeah, yeah, it's so silly. Oh my gosh. So I mean, how do you cope with that? Do you go through and

read the comments or do you make a decision not to? I read a lot of the comments because if I don't moderate some of my stuff like my Instagram or not so much YouTube but if I don't moderate Instagram and Facebook and I let people do hate speech which they do it it will auto think I'm up to something and punish me so you kind of have to moderate yourself and so I do read a lot of Instagram messages and comments in Facebook stuff. I have pretty tough skin very rarely to something get to me. I have found someone did a joke recently about about Jesus and Mary and I have absorbed a million and one jokes about

Christianity. That's comedy. People are always low hanging fruit. They said it and I felt myself be like I'm gonna kill know, like I'm gonna get up there. I'm gonna suplex you through a table. And I was like, oh, this is a new, this is new for me. We are so grateful and glad to have you on our side. Yeah. I wanna invite people to kind of like combat the negative comments that Shane's gonna get.

If you wanna offer him a word of encouragement or love in the comment section below, I'm sure he'll appreciate it. I think I'm most worried about people I do care about and love that I think mean very well and are kind, good people who are involved in communities or things that I haven't aligned with for a long time, but now that I publicly don't align with. And they are going to be disappointed and hurt

and not understand why I feel the way I do and I think that saddens me but I love them and I want the best for them and God loves them and I just hope that everything works out for them and yeah. Camillas asks have you ever tried to contact Sensei Dan? Sensei Dan, I have not. I've told a lot of jokes with people in my stories and a lot of them have reached out to me and what's funny is most of them have been like I don't want you to publicly yeah I just

want you to know I'm the guy and that's very funny and I'm happy for your success and I've like tried to get dinner with one of them or talk to them and stuff Dan has not reached out to me. That's funny. I was listening to your excellent bit about the Florida man throwing the alligator through the Wendy's window and my kids were loving it. And so of course I pulled it up on the phone and we read the actual news. Yeah. Someone tried to put me in contact with him and I was like, I'm okay. I'm good on the alligator guy. I'm super cool. If he wants to talk to me, I'll be gracious and talk to him, but I'm not going to like seek him out. I don't know.

What do I say? So you did it like, I guess. Kyle Whittington says, how, as a new convert, have you dealt with the confusion coming out of the Vatican and from Pope Francis. Has that bothered you? No, no. I understand that it's there and I understand. As I began to convert, like I said, I'm a person who consumes and I know how to get good at something. It's my talent.

My talent isn't comedy, my talent isn't skating, my talent isn't weightlifting or running or shooting or painting or any of the things I like to do. My talent is learning. I know how to learn and so I have I mean in my R C I A class. There's a lot of times so the director's like is it is it? Am I are we doing it? You know and I'm like yeah, yeah, I remember this part, you know, and so yeah, I I know a lot, so I'm very aware of

the controversy. I'm aware of who he is and what he's done. I'm aware of how many people love, you know, Pope St. John, St. John Paul the second, how important he is and how just one of the greatest of all time and how important all that's going to be in the theology of the body and all these other things. And so I leading up to Francis, I'm like, okay. And I see what people are frustrated. And I see how before I started to convert secular people call him the cool Pope. They're like, oh, the Pope who's like not bad. And I kind of don't even know,

they don't know why they're saying that. That's just like a meme. And so I think that's positive. I think that that may do things like make my conversion easier. Our Pope do things like make my conversion easier. Yeah. Our pope is literally going to make my conversion easier. I believe that. And so there are good and beautiful things about him. He is our pope. And, um, I am, um,

I submit to the pope that is a part of this and I'm allowed to disagree with him, but I'm not worried about it. I don't it doesn't stress me out. Good priests who believe and fight for the right thing are always going to exist. Good bishops who believe and fight for the right thing are always going to exist and bad bishops and priests who do bad things are always going to exist. Why would that not apply to the pope? The pope is going to make mistakes as others have done or do things to frustrate us or scare us and at the end of the day, I'm catholic end of story. Yeah, so it doesn't affect me because I'm going to

go to mass with you and weep one way or the other. You know, brother, I'm going to go to mass with you and weep one way or the other, you know, brother J J J Javier says, has Shane seen the tattoo that father Mike has? And if so, what are his thoughts? He's referring to the traditional Jerusalem pilgrimage. I want that tattoo. I literally want that tattoo. And now I'm like, great. The handsome priest has it. I'm in trouble. It's the most popular guy. And he has it. But, um, I he's cool. I love his videos. They's the most popular guy he has it, but he's cool. I love his videos. They were important for me starting out.

I think it's sick in that video he made where he got it a swage. A lot of the fears I had about the church being weird about tattoos and then I where I live in Utah. Most Catholic people are very Hispanic, and so there's just like these Hispanicpanic guys with the sickest christian catholic tattoos. You know, just like this, just the coolest like tattoo of christ on your back. Yeah, you know, and i'm just like yeah dude and i do want to masculinize catholicism. I think that that's what men in catholicism need I believe that. I think that's what draws people to Islam. It's a very masculine religion. And I think that too, um, when our religions were at odds at one point,

uh, it was the two most masculine groups who had ever lived duking it out. I think there's something that captures all of our imaginations for all time because of that The Knights Hospitaller. Yeah, some of those famous Knights of all time some of those deadly warriors ever to exist We think about them in our modern day still now as being some of the toughest Craziest most important warriors ever they were the pinnacle of fighting people Do you know how many brothers at one time were full brothers in

the order? Less than 400. Less than 400 men created a story around their martial prowess, so powerful that it resonates for all time. Don't you imagine there being thousands of them fighting? thousands of them fighting. Yeah. Less than 400. Wow. That's just a small amount of Catholic men can, through the power of faith and strength and discipline, create a legend that transcends space and time and makes you feel as if they were ten thousands. That motivates me. That fires me up. Yeah. Quick shout out to the men in Sydney. I was just in Australia preaching and met these amazing Maronite Catholic men who have inspired me and continue to every time I think of them. And this giant bearded, bald-headed fella whose name I forget, I apologize, started

praying the Rosary once a month on the front of the steps of the cathedral in Sydney. The first day he set it up, it was pissing rain. And they all just knelt, all these men and their sons kneeling and praying the holy rosary. And they just do it. Yeah, that's awesome. It's beautiful to see. I pray the rosary in public. On purpose.

If I wanna pray, I just pray. I just kneel down on both knees and I hold my rosary and I pray my rosary at the airport in front of everybody. Get it. Get out there. Pray in public. Be it's, it's, it's the right thing to do. I, and not, that's not just a masculine thing though. I do think as a man, it's a mask. I want to give a shout out to our Muslim friends. I really do. Yeah. Especially I'm well, yeah, I really do.

Cause my wife and I were just in Dallas for my in-laws for Christmas and we stayed at a hotel for a little bit, huge Muslim conference going on. And these men who commit themselves to praying the way they do five times a day the way They fast puts many Catholic men to shame Yeah, so I think we got to look at them and we have to step up our game and commit and yeah Yeah, we need to do it. Um, we just need to not make the mistake of doing it in a prideful way Yeah, that's you need to be manliness It's humble humble a humble quiet strength get on your knees and pray the rosary at the park Yeah, pray it whenever you want whenever it like to you know, it's the it's the competing verses right of Christ who says, you know Go into your private room and pray. Yeah, he says like let your light shine before men

So they might praise your father in heaven and I think you're right I think that distinction is am I doing this for Vainglory? Yes. And thankfully today, a lot of people won't think you're terrific for praying the rosary. You're not gonna make any problems. Yeah, yeah, unless you're in Steubenville. So yeah, yeah.

So I just think, and listen, it doesn't have to be ridiculous. Hold your rosary in your hand while you're sitting at a coffee and just pray a decade if you want. You know, it just just when you feel it I Don't allow you be courageous in your faith Yeah, I just think being courageous in anything you pursue But if you're gonna pursue something pursue it with the fullness of your heart

It doesn't matter if it's comedy or skating or weightlifting or whatever when I weightlift I My style of weightlifting I like to lift every set to failure, okay, so I'm I choose the weight. I choose the amount of reps I'm aiming for and I'm going to hit them. But if I go over, I will continue until I physically can't lift the bar. And I think that we should apply that to things like faith. I think that praying the rosary and um, I think it's tough. I think it's cool. You know, I can't remember Thursday was telling me a story about the quarterback and they're like, how did you accomplish all this? Jesus. Yeah, buddy. Let's go tell them, you know, I think that's tough.

So I think spiritual warfare is something that we should focus on. Yes. That is someone who lived a life of violence. Can I just say spiritual warfare, the concept of it and being a better person and discipline and faith fires me up so much and makes me want to be a better person and discipline and faith fires me up so much and makes me want to be a better Catholic and so proud of my faith. I haven't even been baptized and I'm like, get me to, I just want the pope to ask me to fight someone. You know what I mean? Like I wish there was a military order. That's how I feel. And I don't, I think that there's something bad about that and that I shouldn't do that as a result, just like how someone wants to be an exorcist, that's a person you never let do it

but like so maybe I shouldn't do it but the There the will is there and I want I want that for myself and spiritual warfare is interesting Because as I realized okay I don't want to sin anymore and I have all these rules and I understand what's expected of me And what is beautiful and good and what is unholy and now I have to live that And um to live that it's difficult every day. You're tempted. The devil is real Um, when I when I did convert I started to have wild nightmares Yeah, crazy nightmares of like where I would

Women would be like asking me to sleep with them Yeah and then they would be like maggots would be coming out of there like Stuff that I was like I need to put my cross back on to go back to sleep. Yeah, it was weird in um I I don't I I don't mean to receive what you're saying with Nonchalance because I know I've had the exact same thing. No, it's a it's something that I then learned. It's like a common I'm like, okay, because one of my friends asked me once and I'm getting way derailed. I'll be really quick to get back to spiritual warfare.

One of my friends asked me once he goes, I want to see a ghost. I want to be possessed by a demon. Bring it on. Where are you at? Because he's like a so secular such an atheist and I was like, why would why would the devil waste his time on you? You're lost. You already you're lost. That's and then I came to that realization as I became began to find my faith. I go the devil is real in my life and affecting me in a tangible way. And so spiritual warfare is how you go to go to war with

satan. So spiritual warfare is how you go to go to war with Satan. And the thing that's interesting about that is I lived a life of violence. I've participated in a lot of organized violence, a lot of organized violence and fighting. There's a lot of randomness that you have to account for. You could be the greatest warrior of all time and you didn't account for the step that you tripped on that you fell And then then you were killed or hurt or whatever Spiritual warfare there is no random component. It is you Versus everything else it is you your will your faith in God and Christ in all the all the strength you can muster unaffected by

random chance against sin and unholiness, and there's something so appealing and interesting and beautiful about that that it's like it's like take up your cross. No random elements. It's just you versus him, and I just think that I love it. Let me get an interesting quote from CS Lewis the idea of the night The Christian in arms for the defense of a good cause is one of the great Christian ideas War is a dreadful thing and I can respect an honest Pacifist though. I think he is entirely mistaken. What I cannot understand is this sort of semi pacifism you get nowadays What I cannot understand is this sort of semi-pacifism you get nowadays, which gives people the idea that though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face and as if you were

ashamed of it. It is that feeling that robs lots of magnificent young Christians in the service of something they have a right to, something which is the natural accompaniment of courage, a kind of gaiety and wholeheartedness. Oh, dude Do you see us? Lewis has some bangers. Yeah, I freaking love him. I was whining the witch in the wardrobe didn't do a lot for me. Yeah, but I've been reading a lot of his other writings and things he said and I'm like wow. I see you read his essay or his sermon man without men without chests. No, I'm gonna have to yeah best friends with Tolkien and

about men without chests. No, I'm gonna have to yeah best friends with Tolkien and I'm like there's something to this. I gotta yeah yeah, but anyway, that's a whole. We just wanted a whole thing about masculinization in the and just like being courageous in your faith. I think it applies to women. I think it's womanly to to be courageous in your course, you know, to be yeah. I just think it's good. I know that I'm like a convert and so it's like oh look at this guy

Six months of mass or whatever says he's whatever but like I do Very much believe these things and everything you're saying I agree with yeah, you know You think of Teresa of avalash? I don't believe she ever studied a day of theology in a seminary or rather a universe I don't believe she ever studied a day of theology in a seminary or rather a university setting or anything like that. She knew more than most of the priests. So we have to be humble as we say these things. But I thought it would be super cool if the two of us prayed the St. Michael the Archangel prayer to wrap that up.

I've got it here. Yes, we can pray it together. But is there anything else we want to touch on before we do that? I mean, is it is there a place? I mean, I appreciate what you said, like, and people should realize that if people go look up a lot of your stuff, they're probably going to find things that might offend them. Maybe you have to give you some grace and realize that, well, if there's stuff that people looked up in my life, it'll offend

me too. So yeah, yeah. That's the unfortunateness of being very public. Yeah. Is it, especially as a comedian, you're incentivized to share all your minor thoughts. Many of our minor thoughts are like awful. And so I'm like, oh, well, this is silly. And then comedian, you're incentivized to share all your minor thoughts. Many of our minor thoughts are like awful and so then I'm like, oh, well, this is silly. And then like, you know, it's just like a lot of hedonism and things that I just don't agree with now. Yeah, so I also think that I'm a comedian and there are things that are offensive that I think are funny. Yes, and that's okay. Yes, um, and so, and there are things that are crass and I think they're funny and um, maybe, and I think they're funny.

And maybe just because I think they're funny doesn't mean I need to make them a part of my life or seek them out. But if you find something funny and something that you don't agree with, that's a blessing. Laughter is, I think it's really close to, I mean pure joy is God. God that's so laughter is a gift

It's um, it's a release. It's something to like take the edge off to make you know catharsis and Tragedy when you laugh it just makes things so much better I just my friend has this story about how he went to his grandmother's funeral Everyone's really sad and his dad leans over to him a very open casket and his dad goes do you want to see a dead body? And like that that moment between them. That's so funny the joke and that serious face is like that's beautiful That's that's what we need to do. Is it offensive? It's a terrible It's maybe you know you came to my talk at seek and yeah One of the lines that always seems to get a lot of laughter

I was trying to be a little snarky is when I said like something the effect of like all of us are gonna die And then I look around like it's some of you sooner than others by the look of you It got me yeah, there's a good way to guide an out loud laugh at me Oh, it's a good joke. So I do want to say that I think I found a funny stand-up female comedian. Yes, let's go. I have, but then I watched more of her and I was trying to be honest to myself, not just like, because it's not a hill. I'm willing to die on.

I'm open to a woman being a funny stand-up. I just haven't yet, but this woman is the closest I've seen and I just think she's delightful. I like her a lot. Okay. Can I say her name? I know you do. Absolutely. Leanne Morgan.

Leanne, she's very funny. I know her in real life. Yeah. She's a beautiful, truly wonderful woman. She's gorgeous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think- Beautiful in her entirety.

She's what a great person. But I honestly think that like women I love and respect would find her a lot funnier than I as a middle age dude do. Here's the thing, good comedy is authentic. Female comedians who are famous are being authentic or successful. I shouldn't say famous, I'm not famous, but so they're successful, which means they're authentic. If they're authentic, a lot of their stuff is autobiographical. The female experience is just probably so far away from what you enjoy. That's okay. Do you think there's a funny

female stand-up comic? I think there are funny female stand-up comics. Who do you like? A lot of the ones I like aren't famous and they're also wildly crass. Who would you take, like your mom to see? Who would you take mother Natalia to see? Mother Natalia I don't know what I would I would I don't know where I would take her that gives me I would take her to a Crass comedy just so she could be offended and I could pummel somebody to death. Yeah I didn't give them their broken body her broken as a present So it's such a good I I don't even know I would would just have to like, just the whole time I'd be like,

I'll do anything for you. What do you need? Like, Taylor Tomlinson is one I'd probably take my mom to. I agree that she can be funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She can also be extremely crack. Which is so unfortunate. Yeah.

Cause I was trying to be honest about the lian thing, right? Not always good. Yeah. Cause I watched her and I'm, cause I watched a Netflix special and I did find her, let me say this, I found it very likable. Yeah. Like if I if my wife took me to this, I would be so honored. She seems beautiful. But I didn't ever go.

I went, oh, yeah, there was exhale out of the nostrils. So I still don't think I could say that I found a very I don't think I could say I have found a female standup comic that I find funny. But I think I can say I have now found a female stand-up comic that is funny and that I think my mom and other women would really like. And that would be very insulting to her. And I hope she never hears me say that.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think she'd find it insulting. I think she'd be like, yeah, darlin', I'm great. I know it. You know, I don't need you. I don't need you. Who the hell are you? I'm on Netflix.

Yeah, she's good. There's a comic I'm trying to think of and she's So important and she's one of the og Female comedians who's so amazing by the way, they hate to be a female comic when you say say male comic Yeah, cuz they're just comedians, but people do love to separate them and it is hard not to especially for us cuz We're so interested in in comedy for men because also you grow up here Here's another reason we don't like it and women love female comedians is because

As a man all the funniest stuff that ever happened to you was you and your pals There's a certain very insular experience just between the boys That's so fun and funny you all you know you grew up around funny people Every man in the world has a funny group around funny people Not every woman did I don't think and if not that just goes to show how much my experience isn't theirs I'm so far away from it. So it's just like, they're just cross wires, you know? So I can't remember this woman's name and she's so important. She's literally like a Norm McDonald and I, I'm just forgetting her

name. I'll think of it as we're doing other stuff. Let me, let me, let me Joan someone. No, he's saying, Oh, no, it's, I think it starts with an M. Well, let me, let me ask you this because you just said you're not famous Okay, then what is it? What is that? I mean, what does that mean then and when would you be famous? I don't do you consider yourself famous. I consider myself famous among Catholics. See, that's my thing I don't mean that in a in a braggy way Just like if I'm if I'm in a huge place with a lot of Catholics, I'm gonna be recognized That doesn't mean I'm good. It doesn't mean I'm virtuous, I mean any of that, it just means I'm recognizable.

Now, I wouldn't consider myself famous, although I will say, the last several times I've been to the air, but wherever I am, I have random people stopping me. You're getting there. And that's because of YouTube, that's because of the exposure of YouTube. Yeah.

So let me ask you this, if Netflix came to you and asked for a special, would you do it and would you say you're famous then? I mean, I guess it's not, it's kind of like when somebody says, would you say you're a hero? No, no. As soon as you say you if Netflix came to you and asked for a special, would you do it and would you say you're famous then? I mean, I guess it's not, it's kind of like when somebody says, would you say you're a hero? No, no, as soon as you say you're a hero, you suck. It's funny, cause I feel like, yeah,

it's one of those things like saying, saying you're funny or brave. It's like saying you're funny or brave. If you have to say it, you aren't. It's not my decision, it's your decision. And so fame feels like that to me. Yes. I don't get to decide if I'm famous. You do. And not only that, I choose not to, I choose not to believe it. I think that when I'm so,

I think that if you're popular enough that it would cause a ruckus to go to Disneyland or on a plane. You're famous. Okay, that's the litmus test. I guess. I don't know. Because I'm looking at your YouTube views. You've got like millions of views. I'm like, I think you're probably famous. Yeah. I mean, I get I get stopped a lot. Yeah. But again, I'm recognizable. I mean, the tats too, dude.

Yeah, I do it. I grew my hair out for a while. I saw that. And just for fun, COVID happened. And I was like, oh, I got to bleep that. I'm sorry. But you don't know. Oh, really?

No, sometimes. Some people say you're now willing to acknowledge the COVID. Okay. Thankfully. So I, I grew my hair out just because I had never gotten a girl at long and I wanted to see what it was like. And, um, it was, it was cool and I liked it, but I like it cut. So, but I got, I recognize less with long hair. If I wear it down, people would kind of be like, are you, they would, literally people would be like, you look a lot like a comic. I know.

And what would you say? I would be like, Oh, that's crazy. I was like, what's his name? I'll look him up. And usually they'd figure it out by the time we were done having the conversation. But yeah, now that I have my haircut again though, people are on it. So when are you working towards a new special? I am always going to, I'm going to film one this year. So I'll be filming one. You're gonna be there. It's gonna be awesome.

If I'm in America, I mean, we're going to Austria for several months to teach. It'll be after that. It'll be after that. I would be honored. Please give me plenty of time. I'd love to take my wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It'll be so good. I'd be honored, yeah. I know, I'm trying to go to Rome with you. Oh, we'd love that. Because there's a part of that where you're gonna go to Rome. So I really wanna go. But yeah, so I'll be filming one this year for sure

Who knows maybe I'll have some stuff. I think I could make my conversion story funny and I think that yeah Well, there is something about that that could be Important I think it would be interesting to I think that there's an interesting challenge there to do comedy about Being converted to Catholicism that is funny and relatable to all people. That's a challenge that I'm almost like, it's almost too challenging not to try. I think it's like you want to make fun of your faith the way you might make fun of your wife.

What I mean by that is you want to be playful and endearing. You can poke fun of each other in a way that builds the other up, but you never want to talk about the faith in a way that would denigrate her in the way you would never want to tell a joke that would make your wife embarrassed or ashamed. Exactly. The idea would be to make light of myself and the absurdity of my situation and the absurdity of faith. And I think that there is actually something very powerful

about admitting to secular people. Faith is absurd. This is absurd. All of this is very funny. This is crazy. God made us. He loves us. We have a purpose on this life.

The rock is hurtling through space. You like, this is what, like to admit that this isn't insane. Or to say like, if I could tell young Shane, here's what you're going to be believing exactly. Another thing you could do, which would be really good is that is that is the hard rock thing. I mean, that whole thing made of skulls and bones. Yeah, yeah, that's shocking.

I'm definitely in there. And another thing is funny is these relics. I mean, the Catholics talk a lot about respecting the body. When you're dead, they throw you in the chipper. There's something there. Come on. It's got to be something there. Oh, man. But yeah, I think that that's a cool challenge. I think if I can make like being in a gang relatable to people,

I think that I can make faith related. It's just a cooler gang. Yeah. Yeah, it truly is the gang. The gang join The gang. Join us. What do you think? Can we pray this together? This is a beautiful prayer.

And we invite everyone to pray it with us. And this, you got it? All right. And then we'll wrap up. God bless everybody. Thank you for being here. Please subscribe to help the channel out. Please send Shane some love below by commenting

and thank you so much for being here. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls amen Saint Thérèse of Lisieux pray for us and Thomas Aquinas pray for us and Joan of Arc pray for us Amen