The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Robert Kelly - Simulated Drowning w/MrBallen

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

MrBallen is known for his content on YouTube, focusing on true crime, paranormal, and unsettling stories. His real name is John B. Allen and he grew up in Massachusetts near Bobby Kelly. The MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious is now part of the SiriusXM universe, which makes him a co-worker. John tells how joining a riot in college almost ruined his future until he became a Navy SEAL. He details the impossible underwater training that he had to go through to be part of Team Six.| Bobby admits that he stole one of his scary stories and passed it off as his own. *To hear the full show to go www.siriusxm.com/bonfire to learn more! FOLLOW THE CREW ON SOCIAL MEDIA: @thebonfiresxm @louisjohnson @christinemevans @bigjayoakerson @robertkellylive @louwitzkee @jjbwolf Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of The Bonfire ad-free and a whole week early.  Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And now, The Bonfire with Big Jay O'Kerson and Robert Kelly. It's up. We're back. We're back. Too late, Lou. You already pushed the button. I thought he would cut you back off. I thought it started over. We usually wait until Jay puts his headphones on before Lou turns the volume up. I pick the right song on the right time of the song. I know you do.

We're back. It's the Bonfire, Big J. O'Cerson and Robert Kelly. And we have a very special guest in here. Now, you have two names, right? Yep. Your name of your podcast, and your show, your hit show that's going on, and your real name is John B. Allen, but your show is called Mr. Ballin. Ballin. Yeah, I'd say technically.

Why did you do that? Sorry about this, John. I'm going to get out of here, man. Thank you so much. Hey, Jay. I'll see you later, buddy. Take care. I'll see you later. Enjoy Sue Costello.

But you know, why did you change that? Why did you have to come up with another name? Why don't you just go by your name? It was sort of by accident. Yeah. I originally my username on the internet was John B. Allen 416. And it was just like my non-public persona, you know, username. But there was no punctuation in it.

And this is also way before I started telling stories online. This was just like I had my private account. And one of the things that happens when you're a Navy SEAL in particular, when you're in special operations, is because I was. I guess no one really knows who I am, unless you know who Mr. Boland is, I was a former Navy SEAL or I am a former Navy SEAL. But when you get out of the military, aspiring Navy SEALs, kind of know who's recently gotten out and they want to contact you to ask for some information about, like, what can I expect? Because it's kind of a niche thing going through the training. It's been, there's lots of stuff written about it, but it's, you know, it takes years. It's very difficult.

And so the kids want, like, that ground truth, right? And so people respectfully began messaging me on Instagram to ask me for advice. And they'd say, dear Mr. Ballen, I'm wondering. Those kids are those old guys? Probably a mix. But it's because they looked at my username and it looks like John Ballin. Right. And so I wasn't like, oh, boom.

Now I'm going to start a storytelling franchise. and label it Mr. Ballin. It actually, when I first, first began telling stories, let's say, successfully on the internet, it actually was under the moniker John Ballin 416, but I forget what I did, but I got like briefly banned on TikTok in the very early days. Nudity. It was like nudity primarily. Just you and a gun.

It was like full frontal nudity. I couldn't believe they banned me. A necklace made of ears from Afghanistan. I was like, what are they doing? Bobby, I'm pretty sure you told me this exact same life story about a guy named Mr. Ballin. That's what you called. Yeah. So I got a band, but the band just seemed to drag.

And I was like, well, I want to keep doing stuff. Keep growing my persona. And so I was like, oh, what her name can I use? Yeah. I was like, oh, Mr. Ballin. Like, I'm not kidding. In my inbox, it was like 50 messages from kids opening with dear Mr. Ballin. And I have a question for you.

So I just took it and ran with it. Now, you're from Quincy Mass. Yep. Quincy. Where Dunkin' Donuts was the first Dunkin' Donuts. Big time. I'm from Medford, Mass. Medford.

Medford, right? I can tell. How can you tell? Your accent. I'm sorry. Medford kid. First Chipotle in Northeast. Well, you don't, that's what's blowing me away.

You don't have. No. How did you get away with not getting the accent? I don't know. I don't know. You talked like this when you were a kid? My sister's in the room. Is it fair that I've always sounded this way?

Yeah, neither of our parents have accents. I was hoping she was going to go, you fucking A right, she does. Yeah, you bet. You're a clock sucker. We all got the accent. Yeah, I just didn't have one. Yeah, no reason. From Quincy, too.

Yeah, born or raised. Do you know Ricky Buccini? No, I'm kidding. That's what it sounds like a Quincy name. No, he's from my friend from Quincy. But you're up grooming, up. My grooming. Sorry.

I'm getting nervous because Jay, if you look at Jay's face right now, he's just staring at me to make mistakes. I was smiling. Upbring. Upbring. At Mr. Ballin. And then you went. Ellen. Went to grooming.

Dude, whatever. I heard it both ways. But your upbringing was similar to mine where you just fought all the time. Yeah, not well, though. No, I didn't either. Yeah, no. I was involved in a lot of scuffles, many of which resulted in me getting my aspect. But Quincy is a tough town.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember there was this, like, we used to hang out of this place called The Mount, and it was just like this basketball court, like in the middle, in the heart Quincy in Walliston for being specific we used to have like a hand signal for Wallisden you know I do that for Walburgs and I remember like we were we were there and like cars pulled into the driveway in the parking lot next to us it's like we're like in high

school and these kids from from Dorchester from Dot showed up dots new kids in the block and they had a and you had a dance off we had a dance off and I was still living it down to this day no that they came in and they they jump out of a car with two by and they start beating kids up, like completely arbitrarily. And like, oh, yeah, that's what happens. Yeah. It's like tribal, you know, it's like territorial infighting. I grew up around stuff like that and it was like, oh, that's normal.

Two by four is a horrible weapon. Two by four? Yeah, it's not good. You can't get any torque on it with your grip. It's like trying to hit somebody with a long VHS tape. Yeah, but getting hit with it sucks. If you do connect, it works. You get hit with a piece of wood for sure.

But, I mean, I'd rather get hit with that than a broomstick. Yeah. A broomstick would hurt. Brumstick would be worse. I used to use a hose. What? I used to, yeah, I used to use a, I used to go and cut somebody's garden hose. Oh, I think you're going to tell a story about when you used to get black people out of town with the hose back in the Dorchester.

That was in the 60s. Medford. That was South Boston. But you grew up and then you were kind of fuck up for a long time. Yeah. And your family, your sister, your mom, dad, weren't. They were like, very educated, very intelligent. And not to say you weren't, but you were a typical Boston.

Quincy kid. Yeah, you're a typical Quincy kid, just getting in trouble and getting fucked up. And you went to college and you went to Zoom Mass. You went to Zoom Mass when it was Zoom Mass. When there was rioting happened on campus and I was heavily involved. What were they riding for? So in 2006, I go to UMass my first semester. And it's funny, I was telling my family, my very academically successful and very smart family.

that I'm getting like all A's and I'm not attending class. Like eventually reality is going to catch up. But I'm failing my classes and not going to classes and I'm telling my family back home. Everything's going great, right? Are you partying and stuff? Is that what I was? But like stupidly so.

I wasn't going to like good parties. I was just like causing a ruckus on my floor in the dorm and like getting noise complaints because I was like playing my PlayStation too loud. Well, I was like, you know, smoking weed and just being a college kid. And so, but towards the end of that first semester, our football team, which was, to be clear, no one, no one cared about our football team. No offense to the, I'm sure their team is very good now, but in 2006. No, that's still true.

In 2006, students at the campus didn't really care how the football team performed. But that semester, our football team did really, really well. And they got to the championship game. Again, no one even really knew until the night it was had. Oh, shit, like, they're in the championship. Wow. And it was out in New York. It was at Appalachia State.

Again, so it's not even home. And it was aired on the UMass channel, like the one channel that plays in all the dorm rooms. And so, like, people were sort of aware that this game was happening in New York somewhere, but not really cared. But they lost. They just lost the game. And for whatever reason, like, everybody's like, let's fucking riot. Let's riot over this. And, like, all these people storm out of the dorms, be included.

And we just start, like, breaking windows and, like, the riot police show that they're shooting the rubber bullets at the crowd. hundreds of us. I got shot so many times by rubber bullets that when I went back in, I'm sober by the way, completely sober. My pockets had filled with rubber bullets just out of the probability that I'd been shot several times right here and here. Welted all over the place. Got a t-shirt around my head because the CS gas was getting in my eyes. It was just like chaos, but it was what I was built for? What's get you like into that? What makes you go with like the guy's that mob mentality? Because like, were you a person at that time no matter what were you the person And like late night be like having to smash the window out of this fucking store or something.

No, no. It's not your energy. I'm saying like that. Just like the mass like looting. I'm trying to see if I can, I'm trying to get a thing if I can get pulled into it. Like, fuck it. Fuck it. We're breaking up a bunch of shit that isn't ours.

I think I've always been like an extreme opportunist in a way for good and bad. If there's something to do that's a decent opportunity, I'm going for it. And it just felt like this is a once in a lifetime moment. Be a rider. You can be a rioter with a bunch of other white kids. You can do this thing. Over a football team you don't care about. And I remember, like, as the night wore on and, like, the riot police have shown up on their horseback shooting us with their bullets.

Only, like, the grittiest rioters stayed out. Like, the sober ones are the ones who remained. And there's, like, a hundred of us by the end. I'm one of them. We got, like, our thing on our head blocking from the smoke that's everywhere. We're like, this is my heroin. This is taking bullets. But I just.

I thought it was so exhilarating. But it is kind of what you're about and what's in you because later on you wound up getting your shit together. Yeah. Going back to college. Yep. Going back to that same school. Wait, did you have, were you sober that day?

Or had you gotten sober or we just never? I meant like in a literal sense that particular day. That day you were sober. I was not under the influence when I decided to go riot. But more broadly, I was not sober. I'm sober now. He grew up like, for real. Yeah.

Yeah. We, I remember growing up in Quincy, there was the statistic that I don't know if this was actually real or not, but we held on to it like this really mattered. It's like me and my genius friends. We were told or we believed that we were number two in the country for underage drinking. Second only to Compton. I don't even know what statistic they're referencing, but that was a good one. Compton, they know no one's going to go in there and take the census. Let me go get the numbers on this for sure. They just assumed.

Yeah, probably. But yeah, no, I actually, I didn't get expelled, surprisingly, because I had my report card. I came back up for that first semester, and despite telling my family, I was killing it, all A's. I had a 1.016 GPA, which is like three Fs and like two Ds. It's like terrible. In addition, I had over 30 write-ups, all of which were sort of nuisance write-ups in my dorm, like noise complaints, you know, full frontal nudity, that kind of thing. Classic. And they have a process at a certain point when you've crossed a number of write-ups, you're not allowed to live in the dorms, even if the write-ups are sort of minor.

And so I had crossed that threshold. And so at the end of the semester, I was banned from the dorms. I have a 1.016 GPA. My parents have just learned this. And on top of that, following that riot, after the football riot, there's riot cameras all over the campus because riots happen on this campus. And like the rioting lights are wrong. This campus was known to be party city. If you wanted to fuck off.

UMass took a big, yeah, we live animal house. You won basketball, right? The hockey team's huge. The basketball was good at one way. This was known to put, this is a party college. I mean, it's called Zoo Mass. Yeah. They'll call it.

But after the riot, the way the campus handled it is they just grabbed screenshots from the riot and posted it on the UMass police website. And it was like a witch hunt. It was like, fill out a form. And if you can identify anyone, you can do it anonymously. And it was like all these people started getting expelled left and right. I am prominently displayed in these photos. And I'm like, oh, it's only a matter of time before I get expelled.

You can take all the photos of you and make another photo of a guy. That's how many photos that were you? So I had my dad came up to the school to like talk to the dean because I have all these competing really big issues that school has not identified me yet. What was his reaction to you, ride? Did he already know that you ride? He knew you were part of it. I think by the time I confided in him in person when he came up when he's learned that I've failed

all my classes, basically. I can't live in the dorms. They have to foot the bill for me to live off campus where I'm not going to be responsible. I clearly can't even do the academics. So he's like, what am I going to do? And also, I was in this riot caused all this damage and it's only a matter of time before I get expelled. And so it was just sort of like, of course you were. And so I withdrew, like I chose to withdraw from the school instead of being expelled. But in hindsight, it's cool that you were in a riot. It was pretty good, you know, pretty good, pretty good. But, But then when I got home... Would you have given up the riot for three more years of experience in college? Honestly, dude, I think I sort of needed. Not the riot. The riot was not needed. I could have skipped the riot.

But I needed to like fail in a way that I orchestrated completely. Like it was everything that happened in that first semester between grades, you know, noise complaints and the rioting, really. Like, all orchestrated entirely by me. And so when I go home and I'm literally living in my mom's basement, you know, like the kind of stereotypical, stereotypical fuck. up living in his mom's basement. I remember in like the first couple of days when I was home, I was like, oh, God damn. Why did my parents make me come home? But then I was like, I did this. No one did this today. What's what I was going to almost ask when you were younger going through all the stuff and kind of being a fuckup?

Were you, did your personality reflect? Like, you seemed such a nice guy. Like, were you like an asshole of like a teenager, like late teens? Were you a guy that people would be like that guy's kind of a dick or whatever? And if I'm being honest, I probably was. I probably was. The thing that I did is I sort of, I ran with a group of guys who, like, by every measure were, like, very tough, gritty, like. Loud.

Yeah, but, like, could really hold their own. Like, yeah. Yeah, totally. And I was, like, friends with them. And so sort of got, it rubbed off onto me that I was considered sort of a tough guy. And I really wasn't. I mean, I had a big mouth, but I really couldn't back it up. And I got my ass kicked a bunch of times.

But so I was more like, I was the. guy who was more talk than anything else which makes me totally a douchebag it's so funny to where your life ended up though yeah you could be more you couldn't be more of a fake tough guy in this situation i mean it's impossible well you went you you didn't you wanted to be a navy seal oh yeah you sought it out big time like you you went into a like a hut with a bunch of the navy seals and that was like your yeah you're you're like i'm going to do this yeah you didn't tell anybody in your family? I was sort of transparent about my desires. I mean, so the way it sort of worked out is I come home and I'm initially blaming my parents, but quickly realized like this is my own doing.

It was probably the first like true like reckoning I've ever had in my life where I really felt like, oh my God, like I've done this and I need to fix it. And so for the next three semesters, I, you know, got a job at a gym. I rode my little 10 speed huffy to the gym in the morning and scanned people's cards in. And then I commuted into Boston to UMassie. Boston and an affiliate school. And I, you know, took school seriously, like I could grades. And then UMass Amherst has this automatic re-acceptance policy for people who have withdrawn.

Even for rioters? I was not considered a writer, technically. And so they let me back in, but they knew that I was like sort of a bad guy. It would be funny. They still are your photos up. We're looking for you, like wanted photos. But I was allowed to go back and I like aced school. You know, I met my wife, Amanda out at UMass when I went back.

So it was a great, great win. but critically for me, what I sort of became really drawn to is the grind of like having a goal and working towards it. And I'm not about to get into some motivational thing. It's just I discovered in myself that... Are you looking at our bodies and whatever speech you're going to give? I was going to get you some motivation. Yeah, give it to Jacob.

Yeah, no, but like when I got, when I realized I was the architect of my own disaster, what happened was I said, I'm going to go to school again and I'm going to get good grades. That's like step one. And I don't know what I'm going to do beyond school, but I'm just going to show everybody that I'm not that big of a fuck up. But then once I sort of had done that, and I'm back at UMass Amherst, I'm getting good grades.

And everyone's like, wow, you did it. Like, you're back on the straight and narrow. You're let's riot. It was like, bring it back. It was like I hadn't given really any consideration to what do you do after school. And it felt like no challenge. It felt like, oh, okay, well, I got good grades. I'm going to have a degree.

I can get a job now. I kind of hated that idea. I didn't want to just be like, and now I'm done with goal setting. I wanted to do something that required additional, like, full energy and full commitment. And I had always been sort of drawn into the military. My buddies had gone off to Iraq and Afghanistan in, like, 2006, after high school. And I always sort of wanted to serve and go over. I honestly wanted to go to war, if I'm being honest.

Maybe that's just a part of who I am. But around the end of my college tenure, I began thinking about the military. And I learned that some family friends who I knew, I knew who they were, but I only thought they were in the military. My mom told me that, oh, no, they actually are, are Navy SEALs. And I'm like, wait, Navy SEALs. I have like family friends who are like in one of the most elite, you know, military units. And they're like, yeah, you should go talk to them about being a Navy SEAL. And I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't even know anything about it.

And so I make a plan to go to New Hampshire to see these guys. And it's funny, like there's, there's the Navy SEAL teams, which is, you know, what people know of. But then within the SEAL teams, there's SEAL Team 6, which is sort of it's talked about a bunch on in movies and books. But like, it really does exist. And it really is separate than the regular. It's called the White Side and the Dark Side. So within the SEAL community that there's like just a very big distinction there. I was only ever on the white side, which is not Team 6.

That makes sense. Team 6, it might as well be a different unit because you have to first become a Navy SEAL. and you have to basically serve in combat and do multiple rotations and be basically one of the best seals that exist. Then you go to their selection program, which you have to be invited to. And it's infinitely harder than anything

you have to do to become a seal because now they're not testing your grit, which is basically what seal training is. Like, hey, we're going to make you feel miserable, can you stand it? Seal Team 6 training is, we already know you have grit, so we don't give a shit about that.

How skill? How good are you at being a Navy SEAL? And then the standards are unbelievably hard. So you have these amazing, amazing guys who wash out of SEAL Team 6, but the guys who make it are like a different fucking breed. Can I ask about the, uh, train,

because I think you kind of answered it a little bit when you said you got a job at a gym. I was gonna say, because if you were like kind of partying in college, the idea, like the shift to go into like SEAL training, like you have to go into that kind of in shape already at least. You can't, you can't just go like, you can't use it as like a weight loss program, like seal training. You can't?

You'll die. I don't think so, Bobby. You can't? No, I know. No, Bobby keeps wondering why they're not getting back to them. Do they have a baby seal team six? They do. Or a real seal team?

Yeah, you could dress like a blue seal if you want. Yeah, dude. You could be a Navy seal. When you ring the bell, they bring you food. He goes, Bobby didn't get the memo right. He was out in Afghanistan spinning a beach ball on his nose. Yeah, so, but, you know, the... I heard your wife, actually, because there's two parts of the training.

Yeah. It's the, you know, there's holding the log and marching and then there's the water part, which is the worst part. Especially for somebody who doesn't like water, it doesn't swim. But your wife is like an amazing swimmer. My mom. Was it your mom? You're dead on about the story.

Okay. All right, guys, it's been good hanging out. I'm going to take off. Oh, no, Jay. I'll see you later, buddy. You're good? All right, yeah, I'm good. All right, fine.

But it was, okay, you're your mom who helped you train for the swimming part of that. Yeah, so the way, so to become a Navy SEAL, so forget the Navy, the SEAL Team 6 thing. I never did it. It's like, it's like once you become a SEAL, there's additional training and you do that. But just to become a Navy SEAL, like from the streets being a civilian to a seal, assuming you enlist and do not become an officer, which is sort of, it's a nuance there, but most people enlist in the military to become SEALs, the vast majority. So that's the route I took.

It takes, you know, about two years from the time you say, I want to do it to actually getting your trident pinned on your chest and then you're not even ready to deploy. You just are technically a Navy SEAL. And the truth is, it's like an unbelievably grueling and soul searching process that, you know, as much as I went in really well equipped with information because I didn't finish the story, but the family friends of mine were SEAL Team 6 guys. And I went to meet with them in New Hampshire and they're at this like compound where other seal team six guys were out in the shack out in the woods.

And it was like, it changed my life because I saw. saw these guys that are like so tough and everything, but they're like, it's a full-blown meritocracy. Like anyone can try out. You just got to be able to suffer long enough to make it through. And basically it's like, you know, it's baptism by fire. It really is. And I was really drawn to that. And I think that I'm the type of person that suffers really well a lot of times because I create the suffering unto myself. But with seal training, initial seal training, what I was sort of told is there isn't a way to describe how difficult it's going to be. Because this sort of varies for each person. But there's one aspect

of training that undoubtedly is like a great equalizer across the board and it's water. In fact when you walk in, it gives me chills just thinking about this. When you walk into what's called the combat training tank, it's this massive pool, very famous pool that's got all the fences are all blocked off so you can't look

in and it's like blocked overhead by some special technology like no one can see it. But like it's where all the seal training happens and it says over the top before you walk in, water will make cowards of us all. And every time you're in the training area for this pool, you couldn't look at the water. You could only either be in the water and be basically underwater or your back was turned to the water. And just imagine like sitting around a pool deck. You're getting hosed off all the time.

And all you hear behind you is silence or people coming up and someone's screaming, red line, red line. And it's because someone passed that underwater. It happened every day. So it's like this vicious underwater training that you don't really ever get to. witness, you either are directly experiencing it or you're listening to it with your back turned. Wow. And it's just, it's everything is a psychological, everything is psychological torture and the water part. There's a whole block of training that's all, it's called dive face.

And it's sort of benign when you look at it on paper. It's like nine weeks of like scuba training. But like it all culminates in this one test called pool comp or it stands for pool competency. And it's basically you're demonstrating your ability to stay calm during an emergency you underwater and it's a 20 minute test. It has to take 20 minutes and you go underwater with your tanks on your back, your scuba tanks, and you go to the bottom of the nine foot section of the pool. So it's like a six foot section. It slopes down to nine feet, slopes down to 15 feet. And your test takes place in the nine foot section. And there are all these line markers that imagine if you're swimming

in a pool, you see line markers going up and down to designate the lanes. You and seven or eight other guys are testing at the same time, but you're all, you have to stay on your lane marker. And you, crawl on your hands and knees up and down on the nine foot section on your line and periodically pretty quickly you have two instructors who are testing at the same time and they have a little what do you call what's that my camp the snorkel they're on a snorkel and one by one they'll alternate one guy dives down and they grab you and you're trained part of the test is as soon as you feel someone grabbing you you have to go into the fetal position and just wait you can't do you cannot fight back you fail the test if you remotely fight back they come down they turn off your air and they

They start tying knots in your hoses. They take your weight belt off. They screw with you for a few seconds. And at first, the problems they create for you are relatively minor. And it's just sort of like, you know, it's harrowing to be down there. You don't, you can't see them. You're just crawling. And you're trying to time your breaths because you don't want to be hypoxic.

When they come down, you don't want to be on an exhale. And they're watching your bubbles. They wait for you to be on an exhale to come down and grab you. But you're sort of like slowly hyperventilating, preparing for someone to come down and grab you. The second they grab you, the second they grab you, you, you, they wait for you've got to wait. And the first time it's like, you know, 15 seconds of them tossing you around. And then when you're done and you know they've swam away from you, you follow the same

procedure. No matter what, no matter how out of air you are, no matter how panicked you are, you have to follow the exact same procedure every single time. And I can probably even do it now. It's so ingrained. It's like you stop. You get on your knees. You never plant your feet on the bottom of the pool.

You reach back. You turn your air on, quarter turn back. Trace to your J valve, flip your J valve up. Trace your manifold to your straps. go down to your chest strap, make sure there's a three inch bitter end, down to your waistrap, six inch bitter end, reach back to back. There's a whole process to it. None of which gets your air on if there's a significant problem, but you have to demonstrate, like if there's a big knot in your hoses, and you turned your air on and you hear a k-tong, which means the air is on, but it's not

coming through. You can't jump to the next, you can't jump to step 10, which is ditch your tanks, undo the knot and breathe again. You have to follow the procedure without air. And so it takes you like 45 seconds or so to fix the problem. And then as soon as you're back up and running, you turn and you give your okay symbol to the instructors and you go back to crawling. And for 20 minutes you do this, but each time they come down, it takes longer for them to create the problem and it takes longer for you to fix the problem. And especially towards the end, they tie these things called whammy knots or it's actually not called the whammy knot. I figure what it's called, where they teach you, it's actually like skydiving where when you get under canopy, when you

skydive, even if your canopy's fucked up, if you can fly it, don't, don't ditch it, because you don't know if your reserve is going to be better than this one. So you get, you get taught to like, okay, when you're underwater, if you get an air source, even if water's partially coming in, that's still a viable air source, don't ditch it. And so by the end of your test, about 14, 15 minutes in, they start giving you these knots that are unrecoverable, but you can breathe on them and it requires doing this. Tilt, you can't see me, but you tilt your head to the side and you've got to hold the mouthpiece barely into your mouth and there's a leak on the side of your mouth. So every inhale, water comes into your mouth and you have to drink the pool water to get

one little tiny gulp of air. And so you're, you are hovering on the verge of passing out for the last six or seven minutes. And it's, it's simulated drowning. I mean, that's basically what it's designed to be. It's can you stay calm when your body is signaling to you that you're fucking drowning. And if you pass that test, you're about a halfway through seal training. Half. Half? Half? Half. You don't give you the Trident when you get out of the pool? It's like trying to get into a frat without the gay stuff.

Yeah. He goes, you have to go underwater for two minutes and do push-ups over Jimmy's ball bag. But yeah, no, that's a great... I mean, I was a lifeguard, and I got my lifeguard in Maldon High, so I relate to some of this. Yeah. Yeah, it's really no different. Same thing, dude. They got to do 10 laps in under 10 minutes.

They come on their wall. and they touch you and take your whistle freak out I'm open water one certified I'm not actually know that is well who are you what the fuck is that trying to bond

he didn't know what you see Patty Patty's scuba certified yeah Patty Patty open one yeah so we know he thought you were my kid for the last 20 minutes he goes what are they giving two days off for Malka is you well we only have you for a certain amount of time and I want to get into it because you went

you did two tours of duty over there and why did you leave the SEAL team? Why did you leave the military? Did you just... Yeah, mean girls. Yeah, there's a lot of mean girls in the SEAL team. And I couldn't handle it. No, so the, so I, we go through all the training and in many ways, like I, despite going in with a lot of grit and ability to suffer well, you know, to be honest, early on, I felt like I really just wanted the selection process. That's what I was seeking. Yeah. But actually doing the job, once you've done all

the tests and like, okay, you're a Navy SEAL. It isn't that I disagree with it or didn't want to do it. It just was, I had fantasized about graduating SEAL training, but very few people actually consider what the lifestyle is going to be like in the SEAL teams. And it's, it's fucking brutal. Like, you're basically gone most of the year, either with training or deployments. It's, it's great in that way, because you become close as you can be with your, with your teammates. It's amazing. But it really is like you have a different life. You live in a bubble, which is the military bubble and I think that I pretty quickly realized that you know I would do as good of a job as I could I would I would do all the things I said I would do but it didn't feel like a long-term plan for me at

least to some degree is like anything else though like if you like you're showing that lack of interest in doing it after you've gone through the thing and you've you excelled at being able to do it and do they try to convince you to not leave they try to be like desperately try to get you whether it be with money or anything is it yeah it's been a lot of money I mean you are you are a a thing that they built to do a certain job. That's what I'm saying. It's like they put almost in their mind, it's like what's the work and the money

if like the person's going to go, eh, never mind. That definitely, when I was, but I mean, I was medically retired, but there's, there's a distinction there.

I mean, medical retirement process, realistically for a lot of people, it's not literally that I was like unable to function. And they're like, oh my God, get this guy out of here.

He's not fit for the job. It's often like you're already getting ready to leave and you do this medical, evaluation on your way out and it's not uncommon to have things flagged that effectively turn into a medical retirement and for me that's effectively what happened so that's why i wanted to say that i was going to get out it was technically a medical retirement based on real injuries but i would have gotten out so you get out of the seals and and how do you go from that type of lifestyle to hip hop dance yeah to here we are the greatest hip hop dance at kronos of massachusetts now let's get to the nitty

Gritty of the story. How the hell did you get into hip hop dance? Yeah, how? No, but how did you get into storytelling? Where, you know, where did you know you had the knack for it, or you could do it, or people would listen to it? How did you go from Navy SEAL to this? Yeah, I mean, just a closed loop in the last thought, they did try to push to keep me in.

They do offer money. It just, it wasn't worth it. And there's a huge drop-off for a lot of team guys after their first tour, because basically it's like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore, and those guys all get out. but then other guys are pot committed and they stay in and there's a lot of people that do that. To the question of how I wound up here as the, you know, big hip hop dancer that I am. No, how did I wind up doing like storytelling? He has seven legs out there. It's crazy.

How great would it? How great would have if he did learn that in Quincy, Max? He just broke out right now and some moves. His sister had a piece of cardboard. I, uh, so when I was in the process of being medically retired, which really it's an administrative process. I was given an exit date from the military that was something like, you know, at mid-2018. This is like in 2016, end of 2016, I'm being told this. And so it's sort of like, all right, you're going to be in for the next, you know, year or so,

and then you're going to get out mid-2018. And so I'm planning for that. However, my date for exiting the military got bumped up pretty drastically to the end of 2017. But it was like, hey, lucky you. It processed. You're getting medically retired. You get some benefits, but you're out the door. earlier and I didn't have a job lined up. And basically I got out and I wound up like sort of floundering

around like doing some consulting. I did some charity work. Ironically, I ended up co-founding this charity, which is, it's a real charity and it's still going today. It's called elite meat that in an effort and it's exactly what it sounds like. Yeah. Is it not only thing? Seal team retiree jigilos. That sounds a great name. But in an effort to get myself a job, I was like orchestrating or I was part of orchestrating these networking events with other professionals. And it turned into like my pseudo job to organize get-togethers for other people to get jobs out of the military. But I, uh, early on after I got out, this is the beginning of 2018. I'm a civilian.

It sounds silly, but I, I saw the internet and social media and content creation is like this really obvious like wild west that it just seemed like there's so much that you can gain. if you just make content reasonably well on the internet because it's like every day, it's like someone went viral or a new brand emerged or whatever it was, and it seemed like the barrier to entry is so, so low, why isn't everybody trying it? And so I sort of began...

I've tried it for 15 years. It's not working out. It sounds also like you have like a great idea, like you're not a quitter at all. It's almost like a different, like you kind of conquer, almost finish something in your mind and kind of go like, what do you think this?

This is like a long haul thing. Is it something you can get bored of at one point doing this? I don't know. I mean, this is the longest. Not the board of SEAL team, I mean, but you know, just kind of the idea. When you did it, though, you were like, this is why I wanted to graduate and that's kind of what I wanted to do. So what's next? Truthfully, with the content thing, you know, it's so much work or it was initially to start it.

Because the fact is, is I posted a video. I mean, I'm sort of abbreviating how this went, but I posted a video to TikTok in 2020 about these hikers in Russia that went missing. It's called the Dietlau Pass mystery, and it takes 20 minutes to tell. You can Google it and look it up. It's very mysterious. These nine hikers go missing.

And I thought it was a fascinating story. And when I posted it, I had, excuse me, previously been trying to go viral on the internet to really know success across multiple categories, like cringy, awful content that went nowhere. Try full nudity like it did in college?

I did the full nudity thing. It is pre-only fan, so it didn't really take off. So I missed the boat on that one. But I posted this story, my retelling, the 60-second retelling of this mystery, the Diat-Lav-Pass mystery, really without much expectation that it would do well. And it just went mega-viral like in one day. There was like five million views on it.

And, I mean, really, it was just a no-nonsense, simple description of the story that I really did find interesting. That's what I'm fascinated by is that that, like, when Bobby first introduced, I was like, oh, it's going to be your stories of SEAL team and things growing up. He was like, no, no. He tells, like, scary stories, true crime story. And I was like, oh, I didn't realize at the beginning. It was just storytime. It's totally different.

I've never even known that to be a thing. I have to admit, I did bring you to the show. And I told them that I was going to try my hand at storytelling. The Danny LaPlante's story. I heard it was close to what I delivered. I was pretty much exact. I didn't tell them. I just told them I'm going to try my hand.

I told you a story, word for word. And I literally had Jay. He never listens to me. And I had him in the palm of my hand. Oh, yeah. But then he found out that I just retold your story the way, and he was really disappointed. Oh, he used words he would never use.

Yeah. Which I thought that, to me, that story is amazing. Yeah. So I told that one live during the, did you go to any of the shows by any chance? No, I didn't get, I didn't, I didn't even know. Dude, I just, I found out of you recently, and I brought you the show, and then I started watching your stories.

I got tickets to the show for Christmas. I did. So I didn't even know you do live. I just found out that you go, you do live shows. I did a tour in 2024. And, you know, that story, the Danny LaPlante story, you know, the abbreviated version, I don't have to spoil the story. Can I spoil? I already spoil yours. Yeah. So, I mean, basically this kid is living in the walls of this family sort of in retribution for what he believes is he was spurned by one of the kids who lived in the house. So he's like, I'm going to get retaliation by living in your walls for a year and spying. on you and causing problems and then he ultimately is discovered living in the walls and he's arrested um but he is allowed out on probation 10 months later and he goes into another family's house and lives in their walls but he he ends up killing the three quarters of the family drowns the children in the bathtub and murders the the wife oh he's bored of just living in the way it's just like you dude

he's already done that he has to do the next thing so the so that story though i uh there's really a powerful psychological element to it in the first half. Because the first half is if you look at it from the perspective of the family in the house, think of it this way. When you're at your house, I mean, all joking aside, you do not even consider that maybe there's somebody living in your walls.

I didn't until I heard your story. Now it's on your mind. Now every night I'm up checking behind the washer machine if there's a whole... Yeah, I've lived that way every day my entire life. I always assume someone's in the walls. Of course. But if you play, and one of the things that I and me and Evan are, who's my sister and also a Pulitzer Prize winner and head writer for our company. Yeah, she didn't fuck off in college like you.

Yeah, she's incredibly talented. The way we put stories together is a lot of times it's actually really simple. It's not meant to be deceptive or something. It's more like what is the point of view that the audience will most react to? And a lot of times it's putting the audience in the perspective of the victims and not like in a dramatic way. But think about it. I'm going to put you in the house and you're going to start noticing things.

happening in this house that they through their perspective don't understand and they're trying to rationalize it you're hearing these tapping sounds and things are getting moved and there's writing on the walls it's the kids the kids are doing it no it's not us it's a fucking ghost it's but that it's you're building all this tension and doing it live when it finally becomes revealed that no there's a fucking psycho wearing a dress with clown makeup and a hatchet over his shoulder who's walked out of your fucking walls it the i remember i would tell this story and there's thousands of people in the crowd and everybody is just completely transfixed as you reveal the moment. And I embody the hatchet wielding dress wearing maniac.

I walk towards the front of the stage. And it's like no one's on their phone. Everyone's just locked in on what the fuck is happening in this house. And it made for just a brilliant finish to the show. It was really incredible. Is your competition for that, I guess, almost like, well, it's not me in life, not in life, but the beauty of live performance is a really, you're only in competition with yourself as far as that goes.

No, but I mean like a true crime thing that does, whether it be full reenactments or has like, you know, AI or just flat out stock footage, or not stock footage, but like police case footage or real pictures of whatever and everything involved. It's really impressive, I'm saying to be able to do all that with, I mean, we do stand-up. It's similar to the same thing. You have do it all with words. Yeah, I mean, I have not done stand-up comedy, but I would imagine, I mean, the way that we put together the tour, we've only done one. We've done one standalone show and then a series of 15 shows that was the tour. I, early on, wanted it to feel like I want the success of the tour to hinge on purely my ability to speak and, you know, enact on the stage. And so I really modeled it after stand-up comedy.

Like when I walk out on the stage, it's me in a microphone. And there's very little in the way of like, hey, nice shirt. Look at that. You guys a couple? Is that your wife? You guys a couple anyway. He had a hook for a hand. But yeah, no, I take a lot of inspiration from stand-up comics.

Well, your stories, I mean, I got to be honestly, when I first saw you, I was like, ah, storytelling. Yeah, yeah. And then you, when I, that was the first story I listened to you. That's a good one. And when you were talking about the girls and the mother and they thought it was her mother from, and they did the Ouija Boy. I can't believe how engaged you got me, even before the guy came out of the club.

That was like, holy shit. Yeah. And then the end of the story, I mean, it is really, and I've listened to a bunch of them after that, and you really know how to pull people in and tell these, that you didn't even know happen, that you didn't even, these stories, you don't even know that they exist. But these are real stories. Yeah. Everything you're talking about.

Bobby, he's married. He's married. Yeah, but you don't know that. You don't know if it's happy. He said it all. He's been with her since college, dude. You don't know if it's working. His name is John Ballin.

Mr. Ballin. the Mr. Bonn podcast Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories is available on the Series XM app now Yeah, family Welcome, buddy Thank you And all other podcast platforms now

Man, a podcast over at Sirius X-Sept They're going to give you a nice studio, man You're not going to have to deal with this crap Like some radio assholes like we are That's what they said to us Hey, how come we don't have cameras that work or anything in here And they go, well, you're a radio show Oh, okay, that makes sense

You can get early access for Series XM podcast and a series XM podcast plus subscribers. Of course, go to punchup. com. Live slash Robert Kelly for his dates, Poughkeepsie this weekend. This weekend, I'm in Chicago and the garden. It's already cats out of the back now. Madison Square Garden with Shane Gillis on Thursday.

Hey, thanks for coming in, man. It was a pleasure meeting here. Thank you. This was awesome. Thank you guys.