Podcrushed - Matt Rife

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

The stand-up comic taking the world by storm, Matt Rife, drops by this week and shares about his first love, his most epic on-stage bomb at 15, how comedian Ralphie May changed his life, and for the first time, shares the full story of how he and his girlfriend met and fell in love. We have a feeling you’re gonna love this one. Stick around! Follow Podcrushed on socials:TikTokInstagramXSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada To this day, I've never felt such internal pain quite like getting up off the floor to silence. Oh, that's hard. To this day, that is the most scarring bomb I've ever had. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava, and I'm Sophie. And I think we could have been your middle.

school besties. Swapping study notes and debating whether today's cafeteria food might give us food poisoning. Welcome to Pod Crush. We're here without our co-host Sophie and Sorry, nor our

nameless, faceless, rather he's not nameless. Our faceless engineer and editor, David, because they have had a baby. Her name is Anais Mika. I have to say, I've seen people with newborn recently in like 18 month olds

and I you know Dom and I have we have the spirit of wanting another one but I have to say when I look at parents living through the first year or two years I'm like no I don't think so I don't think so again I think we've

I think we've reached a threshold I just want to say that I met Anais last night and you did? Yeah I did I cooked them dinner and I took it over and I got to hold her briefly and she's truly one of the most beautiful like newborn babies I've ever met and so sweet and she has this thing. Sophie and I were talking about it.

She has really delicate finger movements and it seems very strange for a six day old baby to do the things that she does with her fingers. And I was like, am I, is your, does your baby have like something interesting with her fingers? And Sophie was like, yes. She looks like she's like a little sorceress. It's the strangest and sweetest and cutest and cutest thing. So, anyway, sending lots of love to Sophie and David and their sweet, sweet baby. You know, not to undercut that, but let's undercut it.

I remember when our youngest came out, three years old now, he was zero at this point. He did something also kind of jarring, where his hands were like, he was like, as though like, what have I done? What, like this is sort of grave, crazy scientists. What's the word I'm looking for? Mad scientist? Mad scientist? Like, inventor, inventor. Crazy scientist?

You birthing a mad scientist feels on brand. I feel like that could be in his future. No, I know. And he actually, until he was like a year and a half, he would do these things with his hands where he'd be like, ah? And like look up at them. Very wide-eyed.

And it was pretty interesting. So maybe we have at least two wizards as a part of the Pop Crush. Klan. That makes sense. I like that for us. Speaking of Wizards, can I ask how your dogs are? My dogs are well, but I'm going to pivot because I don't think we've ever announced our merch on the show, and I think we should. We have a new lineup of merch. We have long sleeve teas, hoodies, a crew sweatshirt, which is my personal favorite.

We took some of your favorite. It's out. It's out. It's already out? It's already out. You can buy it in time for the holidays. It's super cute. It's super cozy and snug. I actually would encourage this. And I think you should buy some. So listeners, you can head over to podswag.com slash podcrush and check out our new line of merch, which I think is our better line of merch and lots of sweaters for the season. No slight to our last line, but we're getting better. We're getting better. We're growing. Unlike our ability as co-hosts here, why don't we just, why don't we pivot to our guests?

Yeah. We have, we have Matt Rife. He's a huge comedian. now you'd know him from TikTok also his specials Matthew Stephen Rife and only fans and now he has a new special on Netflix finally made the jump

Matt Rife Natural Selection so we had a far-reaching conversation for a comedian who's blowing up he's very sweet and we talked a lot about of all things ghosts so you'll be into it don't miss it

I will say this. We've had many stand-up comics on the show. And Matt is the first one that I felt like his real, his in-person energy, although I was on a screen, but his non-comedian energy was very different than his stand-up energy. It was like much sweeter and, like, more youthful. So we have sweet, sweet, sweet Matt Rye for you. I'm trying to think of like he's Matt Ripe, something like that. Matt ripening?

No. That's bad. That's worse. That's worse, but yeah. I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone. Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making meal time everything it can be for my little boy, Louis.

Nom Nom does this with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tantalizing smells, textures, and ingredients. Nom Nom offers six recipes bursting with premium proteins, vibrant veggies and tempting textures designed to add excitement to your dog's day. Pork potluck, chicken cuisine, turkey fair, beef mash, lamb, pilaf, and turkey and chicken cookout. I mean, are you kidding me? I want to eat these recipes. Each recipe is cooked gently in small batches to seal in vital nutrients and maximize digestibility. And their recipes are crafted by vet nutritionists.

So I feel good knowing it's. design with Louie's health and happiness in mind. Serve Nom Nom as a complete and balanced meal or is a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children, literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on. Let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie.

Louis is my beat. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louis is my little baby and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient-rich food, meat that looks like meat, and veggies that look like veggies because, shocker, they are. Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the Lamb-P-Laf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it, and he cannot get enough. So he's a lamb-pee-luff guy.

Keep mealtime exciting with Nom-Num, available at your local pet-smart store or at Chewy. Learn more at TryNom.com slash Podcrush, spelled Try. N-O-M dot com slash podcrushed. A 15-year-old girl who chewed through a rope to escape a serial killer. I use my front teeth to saw on the rope in my mouth. He's been convicted of murdering two young women, but suspected of many more. Maybe there's another one in that area. And now, new leads that could solve these cold cases.

They could be a victim. We have no idea he killed. Stolen Voices of Dole Valley Breaks the Silence On August 19th Follow us now So you don't miss an episode So we'll start

At round about 12 11, 12 And if you want to roll into it With childhood context, that's fine Because that does help But you know We're just curious We can dig in

But let's just start, like 12-year-old Matt Rife, a snapshot. Who was that person? 12-year-old Matt Rife would have been in seventh grade and just moved back from Texas, actually. I used to have a stepdad who my mom, and he and my mom were married for, oh God, probably about 15 years, I would say. And his parents moved down to Texas, very, very small town, like an hour south of San Antonio. We lived in a trailer park for like a year down there. to live closer to his family, but I at the time was obsessed with reptiles, and Texas is full of them. So I was constantly, constantly, like, catching snakes, like, cotton mouths and rattlesnakes

because I thought it was, like, a fun thing to do, and it scared my mom to death that she thought I was going to get bit. I would, like, literally come in the house and have, like, those little green gecko lizards, like, on my arms and stuff. I was such a weird kid. Wait, Matt, how do you catch a rattlesnake? I'm very curious. By its tail? Not by the head. Not by the head, really. Well, when you're a kid, you're so naive. Like, you're jumping out of trees and stuff. You're jumping down flights of stairs.

You have no idea, like, the reality of injuries and how you could actually kill yourself so easily. And because I was so obsessed with these animals, I just saw them as these cute little things. I knew they could bite me, but I never, like, really weighed the risk, I don't think. That was more so just fascinated by it. And I was also, like, a huge, like, crocodile hunter fan, which he, I think he died when I was 12.

Was that hard for you? It was the first, like, celebrity death that I ever felt, I think. It was him, and then not again until when Robin Williams passed away. Wow. I was very upset about that. I had a show that night as well. So I was, I had all the feels for that one. Wow.

So we lived in Texas for about a year. My mom legitimately was so scared I was going to get bitten by a poison of the snake that we had to move back to Ohio, where I was born, raised, lived the rest of my life until I was 17. Move back up to the original small town I'm actually from, but like an even smaller. sub-town of that. Like this town we moved to had like, probably 40 people in it. Like, it was just like an abandoned like mill town. That house actually got demolished, I think. I went back a couple of weeks ago

just to drive through it and that house isn't even there anymore. What do you mean just like you were, you were home? Or were you driving through touring or something? Touring. I was going from Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, up to Cleveland. And it was like 20 minutes out of the way. And we're doing a documentary about a lot of stops on this tour. And we had the crew with us. when we were like, well, it would be a huge misopportunity if we didn't drive through my hometown to see where I'm from.

Yeah, definitely. So we stopped by there. And that house actually, and this is all 12, by the way, this house we moved into was the scariest house I had ever lived in my entire life. I'm a huge believer in ghosts. We're going to get into that, definitely. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, I'm so excited. I feel like Nav was going to want to. Oh, thank God. Okay, I could talk about this for hours. This was the first house that, like, legitimately struck fear. And I mean, you know, when you're a kid, you'd be afraid of a closet or under the bed or whatever, but like this entire house just terrified me. It was an old farmhouse, three stories.

When we moved in there, the basement was like one of those brick walled basement that had like jars of, I'd say, 50-year-old like preserved vegetables and everything all over the walls. It was so old. And something about this house scared me so much. We lived in this house for probably seven months, including a summer. I think I slept in my bedroom. four times. Wow.

Could not stand it, dude. I was terrified. I either slept on the couch or like in my sister's bedroom, like on the floor. I was terrified of this house. It was the first time, it's the only experience in my life that I, to this day, don't know if I was having, like, sleep paralysis. And if so, it's weird that I had it at that age and never again since then. But I remember a moment.

I know this is sidetracking in a paranormal. No, we love it. Take us to the paranormal man. I remember. So being afraid of this room upstairs that I was in. about five months in actually I moved my room downstairs to the computer room which was like probably half the size of this recording room

and I liked it that it was small because nothing could hide in there like it was just enough room for my bed and my dresser and my TV that's about it and it was like an old old closet this wood was so old and painted over so many times but I remember one morning I woke up I woke up and I opened my eyes and there was just like an old woman, I suppose. You saw.

With like kind of a thin, like black veil over her face. And if like the table as me was just kind of over top of me with like a mouth just like open like that. And I remember like not really moving or knowing what was going on. And then she just turned, got up, turned and like walked straight into the closet. And the reason I don't think that was a dream was because I just started my day. There was no, like, after or anything. I remember just getting up and starting my day, I suppose. How did you navigate the rest of that day?

Were you not losing your mind? I don't think I registered what state I was in. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was sleep paralysis. And maybe it really did happen. And maybe as a kid, I convinced myself there's no way that happened. I must just have been dreaming. But there's something about this house.

Even the bathroom was this massive bathroom that was like, probably the size of this entire room that entire room and a little bit more a huge bathroom for no reason and I remember like showering in the shower every day for like seven months that we lived there and like constantly having to look outside the curtain because you always thought something was in the bathroom with you

terrifying so this is all happening for age 12 just a very scary year of my life I'm curious how your 12 year old mind was thinking about the afterlife death and just your relationship to like okay what's going on you know what's the nature of reality was it leading you to and i would gather i don't know you come up in like sort of marginally christian background or something

not at all actually not at the only church i ever went to growing up is whenever i stayed over at like a friend's house saturday night and they're like you stay over but we're going to church in the morning and i would like be forced to go with them okay yeah but like what was your perspective then as much as you can remember as a 12 year old i mean it was never at the forefront of my mind I don't think I ever tried to deep dive into... Yeah, exactly. It literally forefront of my face. But you were on the forefront of its mind, Matt.

Don't even say that, okay? Because what if it's still attached to me? I don't even want to think about that right now. I don't know. My dad passed when I was about one and a half. And my mom always used to say that I would see him when I was a kid. Like I would like stare into nothingness and be like dad right there, on the top of the stairs or whatever.

Obviously, I have no memory of that. But it makes sense if you buy into the younger kids are more susceptible to interactions with spirits, I suppose. Yeah. So. I will say just a brief aside. I haven't even told none of this. Our three-year-old just said to my mother, his grandmother,

something about he was, he was, he's, so my mother's, my mother had older twin sisters, one of whom died at five years old. Now this obviously like rocked the whole family. Uh-huh. I mean, that's like its own, it's its own. entire story but um our three-year-old just started saying to my mom it's like and she died by drowning she drowned and the twin witnessed this by the way so it's like that's a oh my god profound thing right that's a very lake that's lake yeah okay yeah yeah um and he just started saying to my mom the

the day like your sister your sister she's in the water you know he's like she's in the water and you're sad because she died you know he like he's and he he i don't even know he doesn't know that story pen well okay so i'm i'm i'm both a very practical person very much a firm believer in everything that science is revealing and proving about the known material world also a believer in the soul the eternal life of it some kind of spiritual reality that is hard to define I don't know that

I think it's it's plausible that we would have spoken about this and he would have heard it but the specific way that he would have heard it remembered it and then repeated it the way that he did is like you know it's who knows I think it's like I'm equally open I'm like that could have just been us discussing something that I don't recall and it's not like we talk about this

a lot by the way two things first of all you're incredibly well spoken you're such a hot teacher and second you gotta get rid of this kid dude this is how every scary movie starts I know you love him you gotta make another one alright you gotta send him on his own

dude this kid is possessed man he's already talking to the dead well it was and the way he did it by the way and now I should know this too it was like very very offhand and casual and we all just heard it and then I look at Dom and I was like have we did we talk about that

No, him being casual about it is actually even scary. If he was like, I see auntie or whatever, that's his fear, I would appreciate. Because then he understands that maybe what he's saying, he's not supposed to see. But being nonchalant about a dead person over there, that's creepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is terrified to think about. So, actually, I cut you off. I don't remember what part of your story you were in the middle of.

No, I think it was just that kids are potentially more susceptible to seeing that realm, I suppose. You were asking about any other spiritual proclivities. What was your perspective on the afterlife? Mine said at 12 on the afterlife and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it was ever a prominent thought process, but my entire life, I have always kind of been fascinated in the paranormal because of the answer, I suppose, because the biggest question of life is really what happens after, right?

Besides what's our purpose? What happens after? Nobody quite knows. So this is a very random thing I like to do for fun. I actually do go something now, like as a side fun thing. I've been all over the world doing it. Really? Yeah, yeah.

I've been up to amazing places. I went to the, one more notable ones. We went to the Cecil Hotel, like right after the documentary came out. We got... Who's that? Where's that? Oh, Netflix did a whole documentary. The Cecil Hotel's in downtown Los Angeles.

And it's, like, Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker lived there. Like, it has such a history of so many, like, of just murder and drugs. It's such a bad place. I've always been fascinated because I felt like if you were to ever find some kind provident evidence or interaction with a spirit from the other side, I feel like that would answer a big part of your question, right? And if you had some kind of inkling as to what happens once you do pass away, I think that would change your life. I think that would change how you live the rest of your life if you knew there was an afterlife or got some kind of information about it.

Agreed. So I've always been kind of fascinated by that and just open to learning. So as a kid, I never looked for it, I don't believe, but I was always kind of open to it and I was very interested in it. Can I ask the sort of obvious question? Yeah. Have you, did losing your dad so early influence that, do you think? Did that, I mean... It's funny you say that.

A friend of mine said that on a podcast one time. It's super dark, just a heads up. He goes, you ever think that maybe you love ghostling so much because you're looking for your dad? He was, like, cut to me at the end of a jail cell. I'm like, I'm trying to learn how to ride a bike for the first time. I'm like playing catch with nobody. which is quite possible

I mean it's touching to me I mean because it's like yeah I always wanted to do a movie about that situation actually because my dad died when he was 21 oh my goodness that's young

yeah yeah my parents were very young when I had me my mom was 19 he was 20 wow yeah well which in Ohio is late actually but so he passed away at such a young age and that gets lost in my mind a lot of the times like my mom especially

Like, I barely grow any facial hair at all. I'm so jealous. And, like, a year ago, I was talking to my mom about it. I was like, no, I better get, I better get facial hair soon. She was like, well, your dad never had any. I was like, he was 21. Yeah. He didn't really get a full chance.

You helped live your father. I know. That's crazy. That would be a fun movie concept. If, like, he came back in some kind of, like, ghost or, like, guardian angel form. But he's younger than me. Right. That is a fun movie concept to me.

Matt, we have a production company, and we're really interested in the afterlife. Sell us. interesting okay let's collab I'll have my people call your people perfect so you love this but you hate you hate astrology hate astrology

yeah let's get into that come on man it's not real there's no way I just love how convinced you are and by the way I'm not discrediting the ghosts and the souls in the afterlife but yeah

explain the distinctions okay a ghost we at least associate with somebody who's passed on right and there's for whatever you believe there's evidence of some kind right i've had experiences that i cannot possibly explain this is a phenomenon your story was an amazing example as well as i've also had a fun interaction with a medium for another time we'll dive into that blew my mind and i'm very skeptical skeptical skeptical about that kind of stuff astrology i'm just like what are the direct i mean to be to be fair you don't sound that skeptical of mediums i am of mediums i am absolutely

but no ghost not fully believe but believe that somebody could talk to the I'm like, are you a medium or, you know, or are you a large? You know what I mean? Yeah. astrology, I'm just like, what are the direct results? Like, you look up, you say your future is like predetermined in the stars. What is a planet that's 98 million miles away from you had to do with anything in your act of life? No, trust me. I'm with you on this. Like, at least in the fact that so many people. Penn is so scared of getting canceled, he won't just come out right and say he doesn't. No, no, because I studied it.

You can't get canceled for being against astrology, can you? for anything, Matt. Matt, you watch you guys. Oh, shit. Oh, I'm so done. I'm not to perform on Mars, dude. No, no, no. No, because my thing is that I think there's validity

to the arrangement of the physical world around you when you're born. There's something to that. The arrangement of the cosmos. Surely it has an influence. Everything has an influence, right? I don't see how it has an influence from so far away. But a ghost can be in your house.

Mercury's not in your house, dog. No, but it's in your second house. bro. What's my second house? You don't know the language of a natal chart? No, I know just enough to convince girls to talk to me. I didn't know how to be a fuck boy.

I used to resected. All right. Right. So I did study it, interested in it, and found a lot of validity and value to it. And then, but I think just the way that it's referenced pop culturally and by most people who reference it, you know, in the way that you mentioned in your special.

Like, yeah, I'm with you. It's like, I don't. It bothers me. It really bothers me. Oh, it's because people are basing their entire lives off. I can get on board and let you believe that, you know, that it's, it has some kind of involvement in your life, but to completely blame where you're at in your life on our planet is insanity to me. And I don't believe that, like, you know, Virgos are only compatible with Leo's.

It's just every book I've ever read, like, I fit every single one of the zodiac signs. Everybody does. it's just not specific enough there's more than 12 kinds of people sure yeah I know I keep forgetting you're such a nice guy and having a prominent career as an active

so many jokes I want to tell I'll say Penn's career no it's not a pressure it's a misopportunity now it wouldn't have lived up to the hype it's okay I'm just gonna go on there and say that I'm with Matt I don't believe in astrology

there's just no way you can convince me later I love the planets I believe that a lot of our ancestral history is built upon that. I mean, if you go back to the pyramids and what's the one in England,

Stonehenge, a lot of the, yes, there's a lot of our cultural structure built off of the stars, but also they didn't have shit else to look at, you know what I mean? If you had been on a million years before Jesus, the pyramids would have looked like Ben Badgley.

But they don't, they're Cleopatra or whatever you would call it. Somehow that has a nice ring to it. Get somebody to Egypt on the phone. and we'll be right back all right so um let's just let's just real talk as they say for a second that's a little bit of an aged thing to say now that that dates me doesn't it um but no real talk uh how important is your health to you you know on like a one to ten and i don't mean the in the sense of vanity i mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well right you want to be less stressed you don't want it as sick when you have responsibilities um i'm

I know myself, I'm a householder, I have two children and two more on the way, a spouse, a pet, you know, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting the sleep and I'm not getting nutrition, when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm being held down some other way physically. You know, my family holds me down emotionally, spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right? And so honestly, I turn to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful, little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before I started doing ads for

these guys, it was a product that I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with. The three that I use, I use the, what is it called, liposomal vitamin C, and it tastes delicious, like really, really good. Comes out in the packet, you put it right in your mouth. Some people don't do that. I do it. I think it tastes great. I use the liposomal glutathione as well, in the morning, really good for gut health, and although I don't need it, you know, anti-aging. And then I also use the magnesium L3 and 8, which is really good for, I think, mood and stress. I sometimes use it in the morning, sometimes use it at night. All three of these things taste incredible.

Honestly, you don't even need to mix it with water. And yeah, I just couldn't recommend them highly enough. Do you want to try them out? Go to symbiotica.com slash podcrush for 20% off plus free shipping. That's symbiotica.com slash podcrushed for 20% off plus free shipping. The first few weeks of school are in the books, and now's the time to keep that momentum going. I-XL helps kids stay confident and ahead of the curve. I-XL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning.

Whether they're brushing up on math or diving into social studies, it covers math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K through 12th grade, with content that's engaging, personalized, and yes, actually fun. It's the perfect tool to keep learning going without making it feel like school. I actually used I Excel quite a bit when I was teaching fifth grade. I used it for my students to give like extra problems for practice or sometimes I also used it to just check on what the standards were in my state for any given topic in math or reading or writing. It's just a helpful tool all around for teachers, for parents, for students. I honestly do love it. Studies have shown that kids who use I-XL score higher on tests. This has been proven in almost every state in the U.S. So if your child is struggling, this is a smart investment that you can make in their learning. A single hour of

tutoring costs more than a month of IXL. Don't miss out. One in four students in the U.S. are learning with IXL, and IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning, get IXL now. And Podcrush listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL memberships when they sign up today at IXL.com slash podcrushed. Visit IxL.com slash podcrushed to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. As the seasons change, it's the perfect time to learn something new.

Whether you're getting back into a routine after summer or looking for a new challenge before the year ends, Rosetta Stone makes it easy to turn a few minutes a day into real language progress. Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive, intuitive method helps you naturally absorb and retain your new language on desktop or mobile whenever and wherever it fits your schedule. Rosetta Stone immerses you in your new language naturally, helping you think and communicate with confidence. There are no English translation so you truly learn to speak, listen, and think in your chosen language. The other day I was actually at the grocery store and I asked one of the

people working there if they could help me find a specific item and she was like, sorry, I actually don't speak English. She only spoke Spanish and I was like, if only I, my Spanish was good enough to be able to have this conversation in Spanish, we would be sorted. And that's where Rosetta Stone comes in. I really need to get back on my Rosetta Stone grind. With 30 years of experience, millions of users, and 25 languages to choose from, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and more. Rosetta Stone is the go-to tool for real language growth. A lifetime membership gives you access to all 25 languages so you can learn as many as you want whenever you want.

Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. Podcrush listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit Rosettastone.com slash podcrush to get started and claim you're 50% off today. Don't miss out.

Go to Rosettastone.com slash podcrush and start learning today. I want to know what role humor and comedy played in your sort of upbringing. How young were you when you started to really learn that? I think it was probably, if we're deep diving, I mean, I was always naturally funny, I guess. I would make my friends and family laugh.

But a lot of people have that. ability. I think it became prominent, probably in high school, which I know is missing our cue here, but I was bullied quite a bit. Not like, you know, I wasn't stuffed in lockers or anything, but like the butt of a lot of jokes. And I think in that position, you have two options. You can either be wildly embarrassed, which makes it so much worse, or you can play into it. You can accept what they're saying, and you can also make a joke about yourself and self-deprecate and play into whatever joke they're making at your expense. And I think that inevitably sharpened my skills because anybody could make a joke at my expense at any time and I had to be ready to play

into that at any time. So I think that added a sense of like self-awareness and a prominent defense mechanism, I would say. But I hit puberty extremely late. I think that made me very sensitive to myself until I was probably like 21, 22 years old. And then finally I hit bit of a gross spurs. I did it grow into my face a little bit. It hit me very, very late that I made this joke in my first special. But like I really spent the first 21 years of my life like building a personality. Then now maybe I wouldn't meet. You know what I mean? So now I get best to old worlds, I guess, thank God. But I was prepared my entire life to just be picked on and like not attractive to anybody. Like I didn't get my first girlfriend until I was like 17. And then I didn't, I had one

kiss at 14 and then didn't even like speak to another girl until my first girlfriend at 17. So I think I think the late puberty definitely played a huge part in that. And again, like if you want to, if you want to talk to a girl and you're, you're not good looking by any means and you're just a scrawny gangly kid you gotta have something to offer if it's not dick it better be jokes you know so one out of two ain't bad

wait which one do you have oh fuck I'll see you guys later he's just not in the stars you know um so so then so then

early on you were comedy was like like let's just let's that's what you do that's is your art form this is like you can do a performer so like what so how did you

what age were you when you really started to discover it. So first as like a maybe a way to relate to others, but then as its own thing entirely. It was like your path. At about 15 was everything really started.

14, my freshman year in high school was the first I ever like realized what stand up was. I fell in love with like Dave Chappelle and Dane Cook. Those guys would both at the absolute peak at that time. They were the epitome of common. Chappelle show was out. Dane was selling out

these, you know, arenas. And I just became obsessed with, like, Comedy Central, like half-hour Comedy Central Presents and stuff. So I was a fan of comedy. Didn't really know what it was. I knew it was just people telling jokes in a row for 30 minutes or an hour. And then when I was 14, my mom won tickets on the radio to see Dane Cook Live at at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

You know, it was nose, bleed, seats, terrible seats. But the show was so impactful for me that I was like, I'm in love with this. Maybe I'll do this someday. And a couple weeks later, my seventh grade teacher came into the home room and said they were having a school talent show. So I tried for the first time. And it was not stand-up. It was jokes I had gotten on the internet mixed with like impersonations of people that go to my school. It was so bad.

But I had fun doing it. Didn't really think too much of it for like another nine months, ten months, maybe a year. And then when I was 15, I really wanted to try it. And I had heard inklings of like what an open mic was. And the only comedy club near me was about... about 40 minutes away from my hometown, the Columbus Funibone. So I go to their website and try to figure out what an open mic was. And like most comedy clubs, is 21 and up.

So I emailed the owner, which is such a weird thing to do. Like, now I would not do that. And I was like, hey, I'm 15 years old. I knew you're supposed to be 21 and up to go to this club. Like, I know I'm not old enough, but like if I had a chaperone with me, like could I come and do the open mics? And any businessman would have said absolutely not. I'm not risking my liquor license over a 15-year-old just wanted to tell jokes.

but for some reason he said yes and I just started going every week and I think that's where my confidence started to build a little bit at least in my own ability to make people laugh but it also wasn't a popular thing in my school once other kids at my school found that I was like

doing stand-up comedy I would get shit for that so I mean it was kind of just an ever looping circle I suppose of like trying to improve yourself getting beaten down for it accepting like yeah yeah maybe yeah it's stupid that i'm doing this playing into it and then trying to rebuild but he made fun for it all over again wasn't this was this around the time i i can't remember where i heard you tell this story but uh

ralphie may yeah you had this it sounds like a really like he was i mean maybe it's an overstatement to say mentor or role model no that's exactly how it described he was like a big brother to me are you familiar with his work i'm not like not the way a comic would be okay fair enough i mean you know i remember i remember when he was coming up got you gotcha got you yeah he was funny story that killed me when I was younger. I was 15 when this happened. This is so crazy I used to do this. So inappropriate.

But when I started my comedy career, Twitter was still like fairly new and prominent to the point where everybody was accessible. Nobody had millions of followers yet. I think Ashton Coucher was the first person to hit like a million followers or something like that. If you guys remember that milestone. But it was the time where most celebrities

had maybe 100,000 if they were really popping. So what I would do is I would wait for whatever comics I was a fan of to come to the state of Ohio, anywhere in the state, and I would just tweet them and be like, hey, can I do a guest spot on your show? I didn't even really know what a guest spot was, but I told this what you're supposed to start

with, which is basically you go up and do five minutes between the host and the feature, and then the headliner goes up. I had never done one before, but I was a huge Ralphie Mae fan, so I was going back, and he was very prominent on Twitter. He would tweet back with people all the time. So I reached out to him, I was like, hey, you're going to be in Cleveland, the Hilarities Comedy Club, which, ironically enough, I'm going to this weekend.

It's about a two and a half hour drive from where I was from. I was like, hey, can I come to a guest spot for you? And he was like, you know what? Come on up. Why not? But my mom inadvertently ruined it for me, being a good mom. She obviously had no idea what this was about. She didn't know anything about comedy.

She didn't know what a guest spot was. I don't think she had even been to one of my shows yet. It was mainly my grandpa that would take me. so she didn't know how any of this stuff worked so she kept making me ask him like where do we need to go what time do we need to be there where do we need to park is there a specific place we need to hang out do we need to buy tickets

I kept having to bombard him with questions and I hated asking because I knew it was annoying and he called it off he goes hey man this is just too much maybe in a couple years much you've been doing it a little bit longer we can do it and I was fucking crushed that's crushing

and probably six or seven months later he was in young town ohio i reached out again and it was a theater actually smaller theater probably like 700 people but i mean but you know when you're 15 it's so many people and he let me come up and do a guest spot there and that was my probably third guest spot i ever got to do is my first time i ever got paid he paid me $100 and told me a story about how the first guest spot he ever did for sam kinnison he paid him $100 to open for him so he was like just make sure you pay that forward and i've done so since then he opened for sam kinnison that was his first no i guess it was no because ralphi also

started when he was 14. Wow. Yeah, Ralph he started at 14. Dave Chappelle started at 14 and I started at 15. So, I mean, good track record for people who want to start comedy. Yes. They try. Because it takes years of just eating so many dicks until you're finally like, okay, I enjoy this now.

So he was such a good mentor in the sense that not only was he gracious enough to put money in my pocket and gift me with sage time, but he really looked after me and gave me a lot of advice. And like, for example, he had a place in Nashville, one of his houses.

And Zanies is a wonderful comedy club in Nashville. It's one of the best clubs in the country. And when I was about 16, I was starting to travel outside the state a little bit to do some shows. And he would let me, I would take a greyhound, I can't believe my mom let me do this. I would take a greyhound from Columbus, Ohio,

down to Nashville around like mid-December. And he would let me open for him. And he would pay me a few hundred bucks, which at the time was so much money for me so that I could buy Christmas presents for my family. And then when I finally moved out, out to L.A. I stayed on somebody's couch for the first two years living in L.A. And, like, you know, I didn't have any money for groceries or anything, really. It was

mostly, you know, canned soup and stuff like that, grilled cheese. And he would take me to go get these lunches and he would make me order, like, four meals, which is, you know, which was, you know, regular for him. But for me, I was like, I can't eat all of this. And he was like, no, go home and put it in your fridge. Now you have, you have leftovers for the rest of the week now. So he would basically pay for my groceries for the week, taking me to a restaurant. He was the nicest guy, man. I wish. He's one of those people that I wish he was around today to kind of see what I'm lucky enough to be going through right now and, you know, hope that he's proud because he was always such an older brother. Like he was always very worried.

Like he actually told me not to move to L.A. right before I did. He was like, dude, don't move to L.A. until they want you to move to L.A., which thank God I never listened to that because I never would have got my first TV show. Hollywood never called. Right. They never called ever until like seven months ago. So thank God I took the chance out there And I remember one time when we were at lunch He was like I'm sorry I told you not to come out here

I was completely wrong Like around the time I booked like my first TV show Right yeah So he was fantastic man You need you need people like that Who actually have like your best intentions at heart And I was very lucky to have that And he what better person to learn from

This man would do two and a half hour shows And there'd never be a lull Right Usually you know if a comic does two hours An hour and a half him people are like Okay you better be fucking crush them But he would murder for like two and a half hours Sometimes three hours

and I know I'm talking to your ear off right now but one really cool thing he said about why he would perform for three hours was because he said most of his fans were Midwest working working folk like middle class like hardworking people right who probably work a minimum wage

job who probably make you know maybe $20 an hour and he's like my tickets are usually probably somewhere around 60 bucks which means it takes you about three hours of work to afford a ticket to my show I want to give that time back to you I want to make it worth your time and I always took that away

and have to remind myself, like, yes, I'm lucky enough to get a chance to perform, but this is for them. And I always kind of took that with me a little bit. So sweet. I know. That's very sweet and touching. I mean, both from you and from him. That makes me think of the way you do crowdwork now and just how that is like your, I think

someone would say, your specialty. Thank you. But we do have a little bit more of, Navajo, what do you think? I know. I'm like sure. We have like a couple of classic middle school questions that I think people will really want to hear about from you. Shoot, I'm sorry.

It's so much time. I'll transition back to your comedy. Can you do that? No, no, no. Okay, the first question you sort of hinted at it, but people, we love to ask our guests to tell us about their first love and heartbreak. Yeah, my first girlfriend, Victoria was her name. I hope I'm okay to say that. I hope she doesn't get mad.

I haven't spoken to her like 10 years. Well, we all know. You'll buy that. She's your biggest fan. You have no idea. I was 17. I had just moved to a small town, another small town. north of where I was before

this was my senior year I just turned 17 she was 19 she graduated the year before I got there and we met just I was meeting new kids at the school and I was very interested I moved high school as a lot

I moved to one high school for three months and didn't talk to a single person like I was doing group projects by myself I ate lunch by myself one time the cheerleaders came over and asked if I wanted to eat with them but I knew it was out of pity and I was like I'm all right thank you

so um so i moved this new school and started to meet a couple of people and you know following them instagram had like just come out so we're adding each other on there and then people are posting and tag and you see who else they follow and i had found her somewhere on instagram and i thought she was i thought she was extremely cute so i reached out i think i was the one who reached out first so long ago and we just really hit it off she was uh she was still in town she was you know taking her year off trying to figure out what she wanted to do and uh we just we fell in like love for how long did we date it would have been we dated when I was in Ohio for about three months not a long time at all you know just that that hot steamy irresponsible high school

love you fall into that you're like you know we're going to get married but then I graduated early I had flown out to L.A. to take the chest beat so I flew out there took that past it this was like January of 2013 so I had like five months of school left But I'd already been doing stand-up for like a year and a half, two years. I'd already, I had taken a trip out to L.A. before. I knew it's where I wanted to go. I loved it. I had no reason to stay in Ohio.

Nobody in my family has ever gone to college. So, like, there's no, like, expectations. And my mom saw I was making a little bit of money. Like, I missed both my proms doing stand-up. Like, I was very involved with that. I knew it's why I wanted to pursue. So I had, you know, eventually had to tell her, like, hey, I want to move to L.A. and of course being in hot high school love

she was like I'll move out there with you you know I'll apply to a college out there there's a couple of colleges out there I thought about looking into it could be really fun so I'm like yeah yeah yeah you know maybe we'll yeah I'll move out there first I'll get things arranged I'll get my own apartment and then you can come out there and we were so in love with each other

she was a wonderful girl but I was such an insecure mess I was probably the worst boyfriend like I was I missed her so much and this was such a small town that everybody knew everybody and she was a hot girl like when I went to this high school I started dating her of course all the guys well you know so-and-so's been with her you know so-and-so's been with her but I'm like yeah I don't want to fucking hear that dude so when I left not just town but the state and moved across the country I was constantly worried about somebody stealing her away from me like I was so insecure I was oh my god that was so toxic dude like i if she posted a picture with like with cleavage or whatever i thought she was asking for attention you know if she had a fake id if she was going out to a bar

i thought she was you know susceptible to guys talking to her and getting her drunk and maybe her making a bad decision like i it was all coming from me like she was probably doing absolutely nothing wrong at all but then her being young she also didn't let me being out in l.a and how she knew there was beautiful girls out there and i'm performing and meeting people starting a new life so we just fought a lot we argued about potential worries you know so it inevitably led to an end probably three months after I was out there probably only together for like six months but I mean we really did love each other that was probably my first love I it was my and when I say that it's because it was the first time I did care about somebody more than myself and I and I wanted a future

with this person and she was lovely and it just you know she never made way out there and I was so insecure I was just I was probably making both of us miserable just not being able to deal with the long distance so we eventually broke up and I was so sad man because you know I didn't I didn't really know anybody in L.A. And because I wasn't a relationship I wasn't meeting any women. I didn't have like you know I didn't have the rebound ready. I didn't I didn't have people to distract me. I was just in L.A. on a couch. So that was probably my first heartbreak. I missed her like crazy. That was really my biggest tie to back home. you know, when you're a kid

and you're fresh out of the house you're not missing your family you're excited to be on your own but like that's who I missed that was the one prominent like happiness I have back home and now I left that and had to start like a brand new life all over

the probably the healthier way to interpret that story is like you guys broke up because of a lack of trust but the romantic in me is like oh my God they liked each other so much that's why they broke up like there's something

like you know I think two things can be true I think you can be true we did like each other so much. We liked you start so much. We didn't want anybody else to steal the other person away from each other. But the reality of us, neither of us probably had anything to worry about. We just self-destructed, which I'm sure is more common than I think, but yeah, it sucks, man. It was distance. It was distance. I mean, it sounds like more than anything, like if you weren't

going to close that distance, there was just. Yeah, but it took me, how old am I not, 28? It took me until now to kind of be the person I want to be in a relationship anyway. Because I continued to be insecure and jealous throughout the next fucking close to a decade. It took a lot of relationships figuring out what I didn't want and what I shouldn't be doing to figure out how I should act in a relationship. And the respect that not only I need to have for myself, but for this person as well. You know, the insecurity never went away. If I dated a beautiful girl who was, this is just a random example, a bikini model. I'd be worried about her

I'd be full Jonah Hill I'd be worried about her posting bikini photos being like dude you're dating a girl who does this you can't change somebody it's so rude of you to try to the reason you liked them in the first place now you want to change

that's so selfish you can't do that to someone while I'm with you it's also like it's kind of textbook as well the very thing that attracts you is the greatest challenge and now I'm so much more cognizant of that like I clock all of these things

and I really weigh how I would handle it them before I even begin to approach somebody now because it's not fair to try to change somebody and I would try to do that. I was trying to please myself by getting in more relationships that I would tear myself apart with. I wanted something so bad,

but the thing I thought I wanted wasn't what I could handle. It sounds to me like you probably did not have great models for relationships growing up. I also include myself in that category, by the way. like my parents divorced had a very very tough relationship yeah i mean i think that's very common but like my parents it was a very very very toxic and i think what i'm realizing as a and i've now i've

now been with my wife not married to her the entire time but as long as this period you're describing like 10 years ago was when we met just about wow and how much did you grow in since then oh my goodness i mean well what i've learned about relationships and like the true nature of love in a in a long-lasting committed relationship and then that extra thing that somehow happens when you get married. I don't know. I think everybody talks about it. It's like you could be with somebody and then you get married in some thing and it's significant. It's different and I think

if you can convert that, it's like it's a great bounty and if you can't then it's like you're really going to struggle. Somebody said something to me the other day about marriage that kind of shook me a little bit. They were talking about their view on marriage and how they were a little skeptical about it. I love the idea of marriage. You know, the

ceremony and being with somebody forever. I love that. The romanticism. Exactly. No, it's so deaf to us part. No, I'm out of here, dude. Once I get to heaven, I'm hoeing out, dude. Marilyn Monroe's up there.

You kidding me. I'm going to try to smash. This girl said something. She goes, she said, I like the idea of marriage, but she goes, I think it's not necessary. She goes, I want to wake up every morning in love with this person because I want to be with them, not because I'm contractually obligated to stay with this person. Sure, yeah. Which kind of shook me a little bit. I was like, at the end of the day, it's all marriage is.

It's just paperwork. I disagree I mean in my 20s I fully agreed I just got my lobe go dude dude just be gentle okay I just got my lobes

I mean I honestly like I don't know that I can name what it is I think that the you know the the contract is representative of a different level of agreement I think I mean I'm just

I don't think that it is literally about if this is what some make it okay fine that's a very superficial version of marriage but but but I do think that it's a process that's initiated where you are entering into

simply just a deeper level of agreement and in this capitalist whatever okay so a contract is a part of that because it has to do with what I get inheritance and rights to all this stuff sure fine but I do but I'm I'm with you and so many young people who

feel that way because because I myself very much used to feel that way and I see the logic of it it's it's yeah anyway we don't need to get caught up in that I actually do want to

I agree with what you're saying I'm not married but I feel like I feel like it helps to have I'm pro-divorce existing like I think it's important that if two people really you know aren't a match or there's abuse or whatever that you have a way to get out of it

but I think it is helpful that it's not super easy to end a relationship because also in romantic relationships, there's like so much passion that gets stirred up that sometimes in a moment you can be quite rash and you can blow up something that is actually quite meaningful to you. And I think the fact that like you can't just like jump out of it as easily as other relationships is probably a protection. And I recently read this New York Times article, which really surprised me that said that people who divorce for the most part end up unhappier. Like most people who get a divorce end up regretting it at some point, at least if you're talking about their levels of happiness. Like they find that they

were happy or married. Which is like not a a well-known fact and I think that that's helpful to know actually like maybe don't jump to divorce like take some time you know well I think also like look if the human being is a is a like okay I'm going to step out I'm an abstract for a second if science is showing us principles about the about our about the universe which are by the way like governed perfectly everywhere you know the sun is operating in the same principles of gravity as in the middle of a nebula a black hole and right here right like so there's some kind of there are principles operating in relationships. You can call them

moral, spiritual, philosophical, whatever. But like the fact that we understand trauma, the fact that we understand happiness in its scientific you know, science is revealing that like, oh, there are also universal principles here. So like the human reality has like universal laws, you could say that we're kind of uncovering it. You're not going to convince me

astrology has to do with this. You're not going to do it. He's like, and all Gemini's end up divorce. What I'm saying is that like we talk about marriage and divorce. Okay, fine. Let's just like take that out of the equation for a second. I suspect that we're happiest when we're bound in a deeply trusting relationship. Yeah. You know, that's what we are supposed to get from our parents.

Tragically, many of us don't, you know. But it's meant to be there. Like, we're happiest when we're in, and by the way, not just romantic, like friendships. We're happiest in deep, long-lasting, committed, authentic relationships. I think it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise. We're finding all these ways around that, okay, fine. whatever there's so many social factors but then um why the hell are we talking about this i don't remember i don't know but i don't ask him a random follow question it was on his first love and heartbreak but matt you

you joke a lot about relationships that's like a you know it's fertile ground in your stand-up said i i love i love it when you get into that territory but i am curious for you what turns a situation ship into a relationship when are you willing to actually make that commitment um is a vague answer, but just connection. I think it's your initial instinct as to how much time you want to spend with that person. You know, when you leave that person's side, do you miss them? Can you not wait to hang out with them again?

Like, that to me is kind of the first sign. But if I'm like, all right, on to the next thing that I have to go do, hang out my friends, work, whatever may be. And I'm not thinking about that person, then I'm like, eh, maybe I'm not there yet. But I think you take that jump when you want to spend time with that person. You have genuine interest in their life. and where they want to go, where they've been, who they are right now,

their opinions on things, their insights on things. I think once you get a general interest for those things, to me, that's when I start to pay more attention and want to take things up a notch, I think. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Fall is in full swing, and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look.

Luckily, Quince makes it easy to look polished, stay warm, and save big. without compromising on quality. Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall. Think 100% mongoling cashmere from $50. That's right, $50. Washable silk tops and skirts and perfectly tailored denim, all at prices that feel too good to be true.

I am currently eyeing their silk miniskirt. I have been dying for a silk miniskirt. I've been looking everywhere at thrift stores, just like all over town. but I just saw that Quince has one on their website. It is exactly what I've been looking for, so I'm just going to click, put that in my cart. By partnering directly with ethical top-tier factories,

Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands. It's the kind of wardrobe upgrade that feels smart, stylish, and effortless. Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash podcrush for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash podcrushed to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash podcrushed.

Does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored? And do you also feel like super guilty about it? Well, one way that I combat that feeling is I'm making meal time, everything it can be for my little boy, Louis. Nom-N-N-N-N-D-U-D-U-D-U-N-N-D-U-N-Sense with food that actually engages your pup senses with a mix of tantalizing smells, textures, and ingredients. Nom Nom offers six recipes bursting with premium proteins, vibrant veggies and tempting textures designed to add excitement to your dog's day.

Pork potluck, chicken cuisine, turkey fair, beef mash, lamb, pilaf, and turkey and chicken cookout. I mean, are you kidding me? I want to eat these recipes. Each recipe is cooked gently in small batches to seal in vital nutrients and maximize digestibility. and their recipes are crafted by vet nutritionists. So I feel good knowing it's design with Louie's health and happiness in mind.

Serve Nom Nom as a complete and balanced meal or is a tasty and healthy addition to your dog's current diet. My dogs are like my children, literally, which is why I'm committed to giving them only the best. Hold on, let me start again because I've only been talking about Louie. Louis is my beep. Louis, you might have heard him growl just now. Louie is my little baby and I'm committed to only giving him the best. I love that Nom Nom's recipes contain wholesome nutrient rich food, meat that looks like meat and veggies that look like veggies because, shocker, they are.

Louis has been going absolutely nuts for the lamb pilaf. I have to confess that he's never had anything like it and he cannot get enough. So he's a lamb pilaf guy. Keep mealtime exciting with NomNum available at your local pet smart store or at Chewy. learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed spelled try n-o-m dot com slash podcrushed you talked about your girlfriend on a recent podcast and your face like lit up so if you wanted

I just wanted to give you a chance to share a sweet story about a sweet story about your girlfriend or a funny story how long you've been together can I ask it's been almost seven months but I've met her I met her a year before we got together I hope she's okay with me saying Can I ask her when we leave here And if she doesn't like it cut it

If she's not comfortable Okay When I met her on set Doing an indie film in Mississippi That's ultra ultra Ultra Ultra Ultra Ultra Low Budget film That it was a friend of mine was directing it

I had nothing else going on He was like do you want to pop up and do two lines I was like I got nothing else going on So I fly to Mississippi And I'm in the makeup trailer And she walks in she's wearing this yellow dress

and she was instantly like the most beautiful thing I had ever seen I was like upset I could not stop staring at her in the mirror and then I heard her voice and she's British and I it was just everything about it was so perfect I was obsessed instantly

and we got to have the day I'm getting to know her a little bit we have a couple of real small scenes together and she you know I'm obviously starting to shoot my shot a little bit I'm asking so you know you have a boyfriend or whatever and she did she had a boyfriend but I was dead set

I still I tried so hard which was really tough because she was so sweet she never led me on never once gave me an inkling of hope whatsoever but oh that's right because you met her long before you started to okay yes so this is a really wholesome civil you didn't kind of on her part yes on her part yes but we continued to hang out just as friends on set

And I wasn't making anything weird. There wasn't pressure or anything. But coincidentally, the more we talked and hung out, the more we found out we had like so many things in common. Like her favorite song was my favorite song. Her favorite activity was my favorite activity. Can I ask what that song is? Are you okay?

Sorry, it's one of our favorite songs. Dancing in the Moonlight. Yeah, that's a sweet song. Yeah, who's that by then? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Such a good song. Just as we talk for the next couple of days, and was so, oh my God, this is the most

simp thing anybody has ever done. I'm going to get so much shit for this. I was only supposed to be there for two days, right? But in Mississippi, they get tornadoes. So they kept getting tornado warnings every time, like, on the time that my flight was supposed to leave. And the director would be like, hey, do you feel safe flying out? We're getting in a lot of delays.

Or I can change it to the next day. And I go, change it to the next day. I get spent more time with her. So that's the third day. Same thing happens the next day. you feel comfortable flying getting a lot of delays we can probably get you out of here I go I'm not really I don't really feel safe

I'd like to stay here next day if I could so I stayed an extra like two days just to keep hanging out with her because I was I was really trying to do which is such a shitty thing to do she had a boyfriend I know that I know that I know that he probably hates my fucking guts and we I ended up going back to LA

we had a wonderful connection just really good chemistry off the bat I was obsessed with her we get back to L.A., and she had wanted to come out to a show. But so obviously, when she got back to L.A., I called her. I was like, hey, do you want to come out? And she was like, you know, I have a boyfriend, and I just don't think it's appropriate

that we'd be friends because obviously you like me. And I was like, you know what? Fair enough. If you don't think it's appropriate. Yeah, it was bad, dude. So I didn't talk to her for a year. I didn't reach out. I didn't DM her. I didn't like any photos or anything.

I was like, she was in this relationship. And I was, after I tried, I was going to respect it. you know and then um they they broke up like probably 10 months after i think a couple months went by and the premiere for that movie that we did happened and i didn't go to the premiere i had i had shows that night or something and uh also i was in it for like two lines i wasn't you know thrilled to go and i knew she i assumed she was probably going to be there which is going to be awkward and sure enough she DM me and was like hey why aren't you at the premiere and i had a terrible haircut the time i had these long ass sideburns for this and she was like your sideburns made an

appearance, but you were nowhere to be found. And I was like, oh, I didn't know I was invited. I didn't assume you'd want me to be there. And she was like, well, things have changed. And I was like, how so? She was like, well, we can hang out. We can talk about it. So, um, the first time we had hung out in over a year, she came with me. I had, I had two shows, like two hours outside of L.A. and Ontario. Uh, they have an improv out there, but, you know, traffic takes like two and a half hours to get out there. And I was like, I'm, I'm not really free tomorrow, but if you want to come to a show still. I have two shows tomorrow, but you'd have to spend like eight hours with me.

Because I had to leave like 3 p.m. I won't get done with the shows to like 1 a.m. And she was like, okay. And she came and we hung out like every day since then. Oh, that's great, man. So yeah, I mean, it was a shitty thing to do to pursue her why she had a boyfriend, but I don't know, I had a hunch. But then you backed off and it paid off.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, if it's yours, it'll return back to you, right? Yeah. Or so you hope. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But to answer your question from earlier, Penn, I think it's a very valuable point to hone in on. Is, yeah, I don't think I had a lot of, like, positive relationship examples in my life because I didn't have my dad. Right.

And then my mom and my stepdad, my stepdad was awful. Like, we never liked each other. Like, he was, like, the stereotypical, like, picture a cartoon version of, like, a stepdad, right? Like, beer cans all around the house. By the way, I'm a stepdad. Are you really? The hottest stepdad. You're a porno stepdad.

That's what you want. You can say whatever you want about stepdad But I'm just letting you know I knew this about you And I suspected it So this is why I'm asking You did know this about me Well, yeah

We have to do our research here We're not just pretty faces I didn't know you were a stepdad Please don't fuck my mom And please don't Please don't Oh my God You but here's that

You have a very gentle energy about you Like you're very comforting We've just met for the first time today And I'm very comfortable around you We never had that My stepdad and I Like, we avoided each other at all costs. Like, he was an alcoholic.

We had nothing in common. I loved sports. He loved NASCAR. He loved cars. I loved, you know, football. But he was also, like, you know, was, like, very, like, physically abusive. And, like, he and my mom would argue a lot because, like, you know, he'd whooped the shit out of me. And then she would scold him for it.

Then he would yell back at her. So that was kind of the environment in my house. And with my grandpa, my grandpa was really my dad. Like, he was my father figure. I miss him so much. And he and my grandma got a divorce when I was about like 11. And I love my grandma. I don't have anything bad to say about her, but she had cheated on him.

And this destroyed him. Like he, they had just bought a house together, like five months prior. And he sold everything. He sold every single item in the house that she ever touched. He sold the house immediately, lived in apartments for the rest of his life until he got a house at the very, very end. house at the very, very end. So I think inevitably that instilled in me that, like, you know, you can't trust anybody. Even the closest people to you, the people who you think are your foundation and the people

you should trust the most and really lean on and not ever have to worry about can still leave, you know? So I think those being the two prominent examples of relationships in my life, I think it just inevitably embedded distrust within me. Because I'm like, you know, if somebody can be married for 30 years and then she, cheat on you. It's like, you can get cheated on at any time. Totally, man. So, you know, I feel for you on that. You said your parents got divorced. It's like, yeah,

I think you do, I think you are supposed to have that example. And unfortunately, with the divorce rates being as high as they are, not a lot of people get that. And you can't blame it on that. You know, obviously you have to do your own work and eventually recognize maybe that's where it stems from, which I'm very thankful to have done that at this point in my life. I wish I had done it sooner. But yeah, that's why I think when it is finally time for me to have kids. It's like, I have to know this is the person. And I have to know we have a healthy working relationship

so that this kid doesn't get passed down the exact same bad habits I might have had. Totally, yeah. So if you do want to be my stepdad, I'll rethink things. I'll see you at Christmas. I think that's what we're going to get out of this podcast. I have an abrupt pivot. We've been so lucky to have several comedians on the show

and I think we ask almost every comedian to tell us their favorite joke that bombed on stage. You still bomb, ever? I haven't bombed in a while. favorite joke that bombed my third time ever doing stand-up my first two times went well so I had a lot of confidence going into it was very fun

I was like I can experiment more right and I was trying out this joke that was very similar to Dane Cook's like his very famous bit about like overly crying about you know I get I did my best I did my best it's a brilliant bit and this was definitely an impression of that basically. So it was a bit where the whole joke, the punchline

was an impression of me overly crying, right? And I'm on the floor. Like, this was the punchline, right? To this day, I've never felt such internal pain quite like getting up off the floor

to silence. To this day, that is the most scarring bomb I've ever had. How old was that audience? You know, like, what's the median age season? That audience was probably 30s to 40s, I would say.

And you were 15? 15. Yeah. What were you thinking? I was just trying anything. I didn't know, for my first six months of stand-up, I didn't know what it was. I had no idea about building a set.

For the first six months, every time I got on stage, I would do a new five minutes, because I thought that's what comedy was. I thought everybody just did a new thing every single time. Which now I get, whenever people see me repeat jokes,

like, you know, they come five months apart from each other. Like, well, you did that back in, you know, February or whatever. I'd be like, yeah, well, that was the beginning of me working on the joke. Now it's a newer version of that. But, like, you build the set. I had no idea.

So at the time, I was just trying anything. You know, and Dane Cook being such a prominent influence on my early stand-up, he was very physical. So I was like, oh, I could, maybe I should try to do something like that. And to this day, you cannot get me to, like, commit to a huge physical act out. Were audiences mostly older, like, they must have been? Yeah, yeah. It's a comedy audience. I never did, yeah, because I'm doing comedy clubs.

So everyone has to be 21 and up. Except for myself. So I always did jokes like four adults. I never did like, oh, school was crazy today. You know when you're at recess? You never did anything like that. No, that's what we do. You have a whole podcast dedicated to the things I never talked about.

That's so funny. Oh, fuck. What was I going to say? You did jokes for adults. Yes, which I think helped me transition to like, once you hit like 24, you no longer have the novelty of like, he's a kid. kid, give them a break. Once you're like 23, 24, people start being

like, okay, what do you have to say? I paid money to be here. Like, you have to be funny now. So I think that helped my transition because a lot of comics you start early, they did do that kind of kiddie material, right? Or all the jokes were about how they were young and the kid in the room. And I had some jokes about that, about my age, because you have

to acknowledge the obvious. But it wasn't everything I had. So making that transition over to being like an adult comic wasn't as hard for me, because I've always tried to make my set as universal as possible. I hope that answers the question. Yeah.

But, yeah, bombing a lot early, for sure. No, picking yourself off off the ground to silence is definitely, yeah. The silence was deafening. I can definitely feel that. I hurt so bad. Now it's funny because I'll, now jokes don't bomb so much as they'll be divisive. Because, like you mentioned, I like dark humor. I like to push the boundaries.

but that's my sense of humor you know like if people come to the show and they leave going oh that's not what I thought it was going to be that's fine you're not then you know it was a miscommunication maybe I'm not the comic you thought I was going to be maybe you don't love my exact style of humor that's fine but you know what I did find in taking that risk

people who really fucking like my humor and if it's 30% of the crowd awesome if I'm doing it you know if it's a 3,000 seat theater I just made a thousand new like hardcore fans for the long run I'm not in it for like you know the short term this one tour and then that's it you know i want to build lifelong fans you can only do that by being true to yourself and doing your style of humor you know you can't you can't build

longevity by pandering because it's not who you really are and eventually that's going to come out you're going to get sick of putting on this facade every time of course yeah yeah speaking of maturity do and this is kind of like wrapping us towards our towards our final question but this is not that yet um we've had a lot of guests on here and particularly ones who are are more mature into their older years, wiseened. We've spoken a lot about how hard youth can be, that youth is a period characterized by what we think is a lightness or something. I don't know what to call that.

But actually for the young people living through it, it can often be quite hard. I know for myself, I never felt lighter or younger than by the time I turned 30. And that stayed with me through my 30s. I'm curious for you. You're in your later youth, but you're young. You're very young. Maybe you don't have the perspective yet.

Do you think that youth is hardest on the young? Do you think it, you know, and maybe it's going back into those earlier years you're talking about. I think youth is hardest. Not hard as, is being young actually hard in a way? No, I think the ignorance is. so bliss. Mm, okay. I think we get set up poorly.

Yes, I, that's it. Family as an example, or education system. We don't get prepared for 90% of what being an adult is really like. Like, me taking the risk to move to L.A. and sleep on a couch for two years taught me so much. Like, you know, being thrown in the deep, and you had to learn how to swim immediately. Now I'll meet people my own age who have never even had,

do that still. And I go, thank God I had to overcome that early. So now I know how to be an adult, you know. So I think we just don't get set up properly with the things we need to learn. And we can go as technical as taxes, you know. Most schools don't teach you how to deal with that kind of stuff. You have no idea how to get a, you know, a primary care physician, which I still don't have. And you can go back to, you know, prominent relationship figures. You know what I mean? So I think it's easy being young because you don't know what's ahead of Yeah, you don't know better in a way. You should enjoy.

I am so severely affected by nostalgic moments. Like if somebody shows me, you know, a photo of what Christmas was like in 2002, I get so sad. I miss it so much. Depending on the month, six or seven. I miss that kind of stuff. Because life was so simple. You thought school was your whole life, you know.

That was the biggest thing you had to overcome was, like, I had to get up early and I had to go learn about this stupid stuff I don't want to learn about. But like playing outside, you know, getting to enjoy your friends, watching TV, watching cartoons, sleepovers, learning how to run up, ride a bike, all that kind of fun stuff. When do you have time to ever do any of that stuff anymore? Well, you're very successful. You can take vacations. Actually, I would say the last seven years is open to business my life.

Yeah, but that's because of family. It's like that which would have otherwise been time off is completely not. Yeah, of course. there's something about what you're saying where you when you have children you start to it's not anywhere near as um it's not the same because you're not just living so purely wholeheartedly through it as the child but as a as a parent witnessing a child you're you're getting some new dimension to that it's very interesting it's yeah it's like it's not the same as being young but it is but it is it is something i feel like it would make you reflect a lot no it does it does And I, you know, the one period of, like, genuine nostalgia I have is actually when I was 18 and I read the entire Harry Potter series, One Christmas. Nerd. Yeah, so here's a funny thing. Never interested in Harry Potter.

But then I finally was like, all right, everybody is reading this and seeing the movies. And I was like, I'm just going to read the whole thing. And I'll tell you what, I had two breakfasts every day when I did this. I had just come home from my first show in New York City. so I had some money and so I was like I was going out to eat

for every single meal but staying at my moms and wearing sweatpants every day and I tell you what I finished the series often reading by the lit

Christmas tree which is like so I mean Harry Potter by a lit Christmas tree yeah of a lit Christmas around Christmas of course

like there's nothing yeah and I was not yet 20 like you know I was I think I was 18 it might have been 19 um by the end of this stretch

I could no longer fit into pants that were not sweatpants of my like they were just a little too are you serious there we go that's the first time you know I mean I could fit into them but they were not comfortable and so I was like okay I want to imagine you had the same committed epiphany when you discovered porn you're like well everybody's

watched and then cut to I watched I watched all 90 pages of Borenhub under the Christmas tree actually it's funny I'm like the exact I had such an early relationship of porn I have not watched porn in 10 years yeah Matt's taking a picture of you to be like this this is a real person

Yeah are you going to try And show me porn right now I'm not going to do it I'm not You're like we're ending this right now bro It's Christmas 10 years it's over I got him to watch porn

Ben Badgey Pervert everybody Rewened it Sorry I made you watch porn pen No it's fine That you're not sorry That was a little like on You didn't make me watch anything

He actually has a burner Reddit account It's called Penhub Matt We have a final question we ask every guest, which is if you could go back and say something to 12-year-old Matt,

what would you say? Leave your dick alone. Why are you doing him like this, man? Relax. Okay, he's not going anywhere. Be nice to him. I know, it's probably not as prophetic as, as most people come in here.

Most people are like, I wouldn't say anything, or I'd be like, you're going to be okay, so it was great. That's the first time we've gotten that answer. You're going to be okay. You're going to be all right. If you stop. You're actually going to go. grow. Believe it or not. Things are going to get better. That's good. That's nice. Matt,

thank you for coming. Thank you so much for having me. Really. I have a pleasure to meet you. But don't worry about being canceled. You're going to be just fine. You're going to be all right. I'm the only one who has to worry about that. Yeah, yeah. You're going to be fine, dude. You're going to be. Worst case, scenario, you get to be the hottest substitute teacher on the East Coast. Are you kidding me? You're going to be just fine. You're going to land on your feet, Ben. Stitcher.