The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 350: Darrell Hammond - Uncovering Cray

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

My HoneyDew this week is comedian, Darrell Hammond! Check out Darrell’s one man show Cray, now on Audible. Darrell joins me to Highlight the Lowlights of his long battle with addiction and the wild journey of discovering the reason behind it all! Darrell shares one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever heard about one therapist who was able to unlock a hidden traumatic memory that would eventually set Darrell free and allow him to find sobriety! Get tickets to see me in San Diego October, 3rd! https://www.ryansickler.com/tour SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON - The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! Get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! AND we just added a second tier. For a total of $8/month, you get everything from the first tier, PLUS The Wayback a day early, ad-free AND censor free AND extra bonus content you won't see anywhere else! http://patreon.com/RyanSickler What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] Get Your HoneyDew Gear Today! https://shop.ryansickler.com/ Ringtones Are Available Now! https://www.apple.com/itunes/ http://ryansickler.com/ https://thehoneydewpodcast.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187

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We're over here doing it in NightPant Studios. I'm Ryan Sickler. Thank you for. watching this show. Thank you for supporting anything I do. I say it every week when I start these episodes and I genuinely mean it. And if you guys got to have more, then you've got to have the Patreon. It's called The Honeydue with y'all. And y'all have the wildest stories on the internet. It's only five bucks a month. And if you or someone you know has a story that has to be heard, please submit it to us at Honeydew Podcast at gmail.com. We would love to do your story.

all right that's it you guys know what we do here we highlight the low lights and i always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers i am very excited to have this guest here first time on the honeydew ladies and gentlemen please welcome darrow hammond welcome to the honeydew darrell hammond let me give you some love brother do you play sound effect sound effects track no it's just you it's just me genuinely clapping with excitement for you in the studio that's cool man happy to be here i'm flattered actually thank you for being here. Before we get into what we're going to talk about, please promote everything and anything you like. That's you right there. That's us. Promote? You want me to promote it?

Yeah. C-R-A-Y on Audible. It's one flu over the cuckoo's nest meets the king's speech at Saturday night live. That's a fantastic long lie. It'll give you an idea of what's going on. One Flew Over the Cuckus Ness meets King's Speech at Saturday Night Live. And that's where now? It's on Audible. On Audible. Yeah. And I'd love to, because look, the story of Cray is basically your life story.

Mm-hmm. Can we get that version right here today, please? You'd have to prod me, but I love the prod. I wouldn't know where to begin. I'll ask. Where are you from originally? Melbourne, Florida. Melbourne, Florida, all right?

and how many siblings do you have I have one sister okay older or younger older all right and mom and dad are they together when you're young do they split they were together I guess you could call it I wouldn't say happily together but they stayed together so the old school marriage thing like stay together because the kids yeah what age do they split they never split both have deceased they stayed together the whole time even though they weren't happy yes they did i i i don't think they were happy i don't think they would tell you they were happy but i mean it was a very religious bible belt kind of place where you just didn't do it were your parents religious bible belt people or they just didn't want to go against what was going on and my father had his own ideas about god um which uh he didn't care for

church but after fighting nazis and seeing nazis and seeing them person and have them try to kill him and him trying to kill them and his ideas about verifiable evil in this world and almost biblical evil um so he was in world war too yeah and he shared these stories with you many times over you know when he'd get into the bee feeder gen he would tell us stories about Oh, smearing brains on his face during a battle. What? How old are you when you're hearing this? 11.

Oh, my God. The best story he told to me. Daryl. I'm 52 and I'm freaked out here and smear brains on my face. You're 11 hearing this and he's just telling you. Oh, the best story was when he would tell. when he really got knee-deep and like really dangerously drunk on beefeeder gin, which is a wonderful gin, by the way.

But I don't think you're supposed to drink that much of it. How much is he consuming? I mean, he'd get halfway through a bottle. He would. You know, like I've had beef eater martinis, which I don't think there's anything better on this earth. Is that right? That's your drink was? Yeah.

Except towards the end, I got, I stopped trying to drink something because I thought it tasted good or i just got straight into the yaker which is almost like mainlining heroin for me is it yager is yeah always like uh it's like a cough medicine to me i can never i know it it tastes it's it's it's it's an acquired taste do you curse on this show oh yeah okay so it it has a shitty taste but it gets you drunk real fast and um for a guy like me uh who had a broken heart over a couple of things. I didn't want to fuck around. Like, I don't want to wait eight hours to get drunk. Let's get it done now. Let's get it done real quick. We know why I know why I'm here. And Yeager is certainly a fine product, but again, I was, I was misused. I was using it to get

oblivious as quickly as I could, you know. So wait, let's go back to your dad, the craziest one you were going to tell us the story. He had a German luger. So you could tell what kind of mood he was in. if he came out of the bedroom with a catch with a baseball glove he had an old-timey baseball glove which he dearly loved and um he also had a german luger so if he came out with the baseball glove's going to be a good day if he came out with a german luger it means he'd been having nightmares the night that's gosh i mean that you could tell he'd come out with a lugar because you could hear him screaming his sleep so you know, knew it was coming the next day he's having literal night terrors before we're recording we're talking about our bullshit this this man's he used to talk about about you know he'd been you know

at that point he was you know this is even towards the end of his life he would talk about how he he's pretty old he's in his 80s he's seen a lot of stuff but he never saw anything like the eyes of a Nazi and he just was convinced that this was not about patriotism or Protecting a country or not even a conscript soldier. Like, for instance, he had a lot of respect for Korean soldiers because they were soldiers. But these cats, they're into something else. I see. And their eyes haunted him until his death, you know, at 88.

And he fought them when he was in his early 20s. Yeah, I mean, he's just a young man doing this. Never left him. and he's telling you these stories in detail like that yeah i mean what had happened was there was a battle where um everyone around them they got the shit shot out of them and there were Nazis walking through looking for bodies and everyone appeared to be dead and he wanted to appear to be dead so he smeared his face with brains stay alive you know what's not for me the military yeah you know what i mean i've known since i was like

little kid like that's not for me it just not for me and also you know he was an 18 year old boy when he joined up and he because he thought that was the thing to do it did he join or were he joined it was he wasn't drafted then he was like I'm doing this no he'd heard about Hitler and he wanted to fight it Hitler he didn't know what Hitler was gotcha you know there's like any young man like yo I want to defend the country and all that they didn't really understand what they were walking into. And then, I mean, you know, this grew up in Florida with the Palmasia Methodist Church, baseball player in Tampa, Florida, you know, he's a good kid.

And they drove him nuts. They drove him out of his mind. Seeing the things that he saw. I can't even imagine. Seeing, you know, there was this one guy, kid who was developmental. challenged, you know, but he was loved by the men. And somehow he, when the shooting started, he freaked and he wandered off from where they were. And he was picked up by the Nazis. And they hung him from the tree in front of them. And the men had to lay down there and watch the kid be

and they hung him very badly. So that there was a lot of struggle. And, You know, I once heard someone say, if you're not committing atrocities in war, if you're not committing atrocities, you're losing. You're losing. So there's that story. Anyway. And what's mom doing? Church.

Is she just taking care of the family and stuff? Or does she have a job as well? Or does she work at the church, volunteer? She didn't have a job until later until, well, that's not true. I think by the time I was like eight or nine years old, she was. working as a gray lady at the elementary school. And I don't know that, um, I don't know that, that they paid those women. What's a gray lady?

Nurse. Oh, okay. Clinic. So she's helping out at the school then. Yeah. And later, um, I'd say when I got into my teen, she took a job as a secretary. You know, she learned, she went to secretary of school. So with all the, oh, I had the German Luger story.

Yeah. He, watching this mascot being hung like that deliberately so that he suffered for a while and didn't die for a while, he killed somebody. He got medals and, you know, you get a medal in the war. It's not for shaking hands. He killed people. And he took a German luger off a Nazi and took it home. them and so when he was in the gin he would say um you know i shot him i mean he's just

point blank range and god damn it i hope i'll go to hell because i know he's in hell and what i want to do to him will be legal in hell I never hated someone so much that I thought, you know what? I want to go to the shitty place you go so I can see you again and put my... I know you're going to hell and I'm coming after you. Yeah. Because what I wanted to do is going to be legal down there. Yeah.

Man. Yeah. So then you're seeing all this as a small child. When do you... What's your first sip of alcohol? What is your first step into addiction? And how old are you? When I was 14, I drank two bush beers, and it was life went from black and white

and desperate to in living color and pleasant and comfortable, unforgettable. We were kids, and the kids would go, I don't know where the hell I got beer, but they had a six pack of bush, and I drank two of them, and it was certainly the greatest experience in my life. You loved it. Yeah. I didn't feel. That was your first sip of alcohol or anything?

Yeah. Had you ever, I wanted to ask you this, because a lot of first, I talked to people on our other show the way back, a lot of times people's first buzz was dip or snuff, right? Did you ever try any of that before drinking? Not before drinking, but I did do, I did do dip. And you get like, that's a different kind of buzz. Yeah. And, you know, there were kids, you know, baseball was my life.

And there were kids that chewed tobacco while they played, but I couldn't do that. What if I swallowed it? And also, it would buzz me a little, which I love being buzzed, but not while I'm facing a fastball. Yeah. Not while I'm trying to hit a curveball. Right. So you have two bush beers and then what? Is it on from there?

Or do you slowly get into this? Or is it we're doing this? Very slowly. and I was when I was 14, when I was 15 or 16, you know, the kids, and I mean, good kids who never got in trouble in the law and had good grades and went to college and had you, but they're kids, and they would drink tall boys, 16-ounce tall boys, and, brother, I've never tasted anything better than a 16-ounce Budweiser. Sorry.

Don't say sorry. And I'm eating in the best. I love it. Because you earlier, you were like, man, I have a beefeater, Jim Martini, but Bubwiser's what got you. Well, I never drank a martini without a bud. I mean, come on. Oh, really? Oh, no.

Oh, it's a chaser? I liked the two, the boiler maker effect. You know, and later on, beefeeder got two, uh, if I drank beef feeder, there was no chance of socializing. And I would, I would drink it like at home. If I drank Jack Daniels, it was a possibility. I drank whiskey. So I got into, you know, a beer and a, and I love Jamie and I love Jack. Those were beautiful.

Yeah. What was your first liquor? So you're hitting beer at first. You're having Bush and Bub. What's the first liquor you had? Well, the first time I got drunk was when I went over at Buford's house. He's the offensive tackle and I'm the quarterback. back. And we were just going to hang out and do what stupid kids do when you're 14. You got

no moves you can make. He got the guy across the street. I won't say his name, who was a teenager, to buy us Seagram 7. So we didn't know anything about it. And he took two highball glasses and poured them almost to the top with Seagram 7, splashed it with ginger ale so it would taste good. And we drank them. We drank probably three or four ounces like bup bup bup bup bup and the next thing I know the quarterback of the Melbourne High School J.B football team and the Allstate Defense tackle were slow dancing. Slow dancing. We slow dance. So what? I don't know. It was something like, I don't know what it was. I don't know what this song was but we were slow i don't even know if there was a song

it's like hilarious it's even better there's no song you got just hugging it out and dancing yeah i love that it's burned in there too oh yeah unforgettable stuff that's great so uh after that yeah okay i'm sorry after that well then you know mostly i just did hung out with the guys and and and tried to get we tried to get people to buy his beer and we'd give them extra beer and then there was always the guy

there was Leland at the gas station who was had a misshapen head and sort of a twisted leer like this eyes the eyes didn't quite seem to belong to the same person like the different eyes and he always seemed to have a dab of mayonnaise at the corner of his mouth

yes no kidding right there I know exactly what you're talking about. And he would, we, we would, I've never heard it. Hold on.

I've never heard anyone call it a dab of mayonnaise. It is the perfect. He always seemed to have a dab of mayonnaise at the corner of his mouth. He would sell us beer because he wanted to talk to us. He, he correctly understood that we were quote unquote jocks. We were playing, we were ball players.

And he used to say, we'd ask him how he was doing he's like I need to get me some pussy no he said I need to get me some strange strange oh yeah yeah I was like we're like great see you know I need to I need to get me some strange oh yeah but it was so impassioned you know so impassioned you know so impassioned and it's like, how am I doing, buddy, I need to get me some strange. That's a pro. He was so into it. He sounds like he was out of it, actually.

He needed to get into that strange. Yeah, I think he would have hit him at some point. You know, you know, you're going to get him. you're thinking about you're walking around the gas station all day long and you can't stop thinking about it you get me some dry age so at what point let's let's dive into a little bit of cray here at what point do you realize you're struggling now with alcohol that's now it's a problem how old are you at that point well to begin cray you have to begin when i was 19 years old and I was drinking beer with my friends.

And as if by a pre-arranged plan, as if there had been a program in me that at some point would enact itself, it would fire. We were at this beautiful party on the beach, dancing, girls, pretty girls, surfers, you know what I mean? it was just a really pleasant scene playing music I like an automaton I just rose

where we were and I walked into the kitchen and I pulled out I went to the silverware drawer and pulled out a serrated steak knife and serrated steak knife is important in the story don't know why I pulled

like my mind didn't even know my hand just found it and then i went upstairs and uh cut myself for the first time um you can i think you can still see it can you still see that there yeah that one you just stabbed cut serrated steak knife cut it had no idea why and you know significance it's just stitches yeah you know i mean down there they don't stitch you up for you know for for for a little cut It bled terribly, you know, cutting right in there. When I was 25, I remember waking up in this SRO in New York City. And I realized that I hadn't been sober in a year, even though I'd been waiting tables.

And I had a lot to drink about. Literally every day. well after work after work you know I was young and strong I was still strong at 25 and I would wait tables we'd all go out and get drunk get up and do it again it had been a year since I had not had a sober night in a year I don't alcohol is is the smoke it's the symptom that there's a fire and I wouldn't get to what that fire was until much later in life.

What finally took you there? Sorry. I have 53 self-inflicted woes. And all from knives? I guess occasionally I would use something other than, I only

use the serrated steak knife the first time. For cutting? For cutting. You've never done anything crazy, like shot yourself in the foot or anything like that's what I'm getting at here. This is all cutting. So from the age of 19 until the age of 50, I went to a series of doctors who hadn't the faintest idea what the fuck was wrong with me. And I'm talking about real doctors, not punk's, park avenue doctors. No one could understand what was wrong with me. And they started throwing out the usual suspects.

which are what what are they bipolar okay yeah complex PTSD mirrors bipolar they look a lot of like you get upset for no reason I can't understand while I'm upset suddenly I'm enraged well that's that's what complex PTSD is which we could get into that on another another program if you want because it's I would like to, yeah.

It's kind of involved, you know. But when I, I finally cut myself so bad that when they took me to the hospital, the cut was so deep that the doctors could no longer say, this is Cornell Hospital in New York, they could no longer say he's just a cutter. He's not really trying to hurt himself. He just cuts. Well, this was savage. This was the kind where meat blossoms from the cutter. like the meat in the middle of your arm bubbles up and comes out. That pink.

It was a savage cut. So they reasoned, you know what? We've been wanting them to send them to the Nod House for a long time. And there's a great one upstate. And they sent me there. What age are you at this point? 50 something, 51. That's when they sent you.

Maybe 50s into my 50s. Can I ask you this quick question before we get back to the hospital they send you to? What did you like about cutting your? yourself. Well, there's a couple of reasons, a couple things. A, it's a way of creating a crisis that's manageable as opposed to the crisis in your head. Blanket terror. I don't know if you know terror, do you? Terror. You can't talk. You can't move. Like a rabbit freezing in front of a snake. terror so I could create a crisis that was manageable I see and it diverted me I can fix this I can and it would break the spell the thing that was going on in my head and what was going on

in my head was a series of flashbacks a series of I'd see red I heard pounding it was real psycho shit you know and for years you're going through this well I'm going to the doctor they don't know what the hell is right but I'm saying you would see the flashbacks for years and everything yeah and then i when i would cut it would go away okay so cutting was actually a solution not a problem yes with way you're using it yeah because i mean if you look you can see the cuts yeah i was never really trying to kill myself but you also was never about like it actually feels good this was more of about like if i do this i can fix this and it stops this if anything it felt bad because it so mimics because there's something going to

in you don't want going in and then something comes out you don't want either it mimits that that sort of thing when a child is forced into involuntary sex when they don't even know what it is and did that happen to you well yeah when did you realize that oh you're getting ahead of ourselves okay wait let's go to the hospital first because they're sending you to the hospital And the doctor said He comes in This is Dr. K He's 50, 100 years ahead of his time

And he walks in He's like Let me see You are schizophrenic You are bipolar, unipolar, you are manic depressive You are psychotic You are a borderline personality Let's face it

You are a nut. And I was like, ha ha. You know, he was just trying to, I was like, he said, I'm laughing, Daryl, because you're not any of these things. Right. I get it. And these are what they've been telling you for years? Well, what are they going to do in the emergency room?

They can only keep you for 24 hours. So they're like, well, it's got to be one of these. How come he keeps cutting himself? The guys on TVs, not a major star, but at that time was a bit of a star. I'm meeting presidents. working with them are you working on SNL at the time yes how are you keeping that fucking secret and

hidden do you demand to wear long sleeves on all your sketches no if I go back and look at any old SNL sketches are you ever in short sleeves I don't think so but there is a picture of me when I was in a dress I was playing a woman and if you see the movie

the documentary cracked up they isolated a scene where I was out there and you could see that I was cut. You could. I also cut before my first Gore debate. Bush Gore debate. Like how, what you say before?

How long before? Minutes? Hour, two hours. Are you serious? Yes. And is that to help yourself to quiet this? To stabilize me so I can go out there. Wow.

And hit that home room. Okay. So he says you're, I'm laughing because you're none of these things, he says to you. Yeah. I'm laughing because you're none of these things. And I said, you know, maybe my brain is broken. And he's like, you know, you cannot do what you have done hundreds of times in front of millions of people

flawlessly with a broken brain. And then he gets down to it. And he blows my mind. He goes, you're here because of something that happened to you. We're not blocking an enzyme. We're not playing that game. You're in this room tonight because of something that happened to you. I like this guy.

And I'm like, it was my hallelujah chorus moment. And he said, and this is the centerpiece of the play. He says, mental illness is not an airborne virus. it comes from somewhere somewhere specific it has a story we're going to learn your story

I'm like what the fuck you know I couldn't believe it you know I mean I'm 52 right now and I'm even thinking of myself if a doctor saying this to me

I'm going to be a little bit of like what are we talking how I'm going to learn new shit how all of a sudden yeah like what happened to me about you help me out here bud yeah well to brag to crack me open because all the doctors were trying to crack me open to crack me open he used colors i have stenesthesia oh you do okay so i color code everything and if i can't color code it for instance i can't understand it so for those that don't know synesthesia is part of it i've read a little bit about memory and things too but uh you you can explain a song to me and a color this sounds blue to me

all of my s and l characters had colors okay and you know i don't know why i people people used to wonder why i was making colors on my pages different colors because every person that uh got it had a different color for instance i tried to i was a i couldn't do math and they sent me to this experimental class where we broke down numbers into colors. And when that happened, I could do math. You saw it. I'm a huge Hendricks super freak. And I know that he was that way as well with music. And then his engineer Eddie Kramer was the same. So he met someone that was when he would say, hey, I'm hearing this orange. He was like, got it. And he was like, yes. And I'm like, man, you need that if you're going to have that. You know, like that's

brilliant to be able to communicate that. This sounds red to me. So, okay, so he starts using colors. does that do for you who the doctor well he's just full he's just fiddling around at first he comes in he's like i'd like to try something and he says what color was porky the pig i'm like yellow box bunny aqua aqua haroldo rovillo era. What color is? He did. What color is?

He's black with streaks of light blue. And that's really how you saw Bugs Bunny. All of them. And no one had ever asked you. Pewey Herman Green, you know, Bill Clinton, orange, George Bush Brown. Yeah. And then he says, can I ask you? I know people are going to yell at me for interrupting you.

But had you ever communicated that to anybody ever before? Did you ever say, when you see Bill Clinton, do you see orange? Did you ever? No, no, no. I knew I was a freak. You knew. But this is the first person introducing color to you and asking you this. This is the first person that understood what synesthesia was.

Yeah, I knew I was a freak in that way. Okay. Everything had a color. So once he figures that now. Okay. So he goes through that. What was the last one? Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig.

Pee Wee Herman. Pee Wee Herman. Bill Clinton, George Bush. George Bush. And at one point he's, because remember I'm having these flashbacks, right? And in the flashbacks, it was sort of a, I remember in a flashback, you're not seeing this in front of you. It's in your mind's eye, right? You feel red.

You feel it. And I had this thing about this, this sound, what was that? Every time, and then I would cut and the whole thing would go away. So there was always that sound. I don't know, and I don't know what it was. This is boring, but it got more sophisticated over the years. So it became, instead of just red, it became a square with red in it. And then the red was a lava lamp, so you have a square.

with different, with red. Anyway. So he says, are any of the characters red? I'm like, no. He's like, no red. And I told him, I'm like, I don't like it. I don't know why I don't like it. I don't like it.

I mean, I don't have to like it. I don't have to know why I don't like it. I just don't like red. and he said um what color was the house you grew up in like beige the furniture inside beige everything was beige the yard was light green um because the sand from the beach would blow oh yeah florida even from two even from two miles away we had lots of sand in our yard because that Atlantic Ocean has a very strong win so it was just very very bland and then he says where was the red I'm like there was no red there was no red he's like then he gets like all

freaking him he's like but there has to be you sure there won a Nazi flag and I'm going yeah I'm going how does like he was so fucking hypnotized but no he goes but there has to be that has to be red. I was like, oh, you'd be like, what are like, you being like a flower? He said, yeah. I said, well, there was a hibiscus bush. And he, he flipped. He was like, a hibiscus bush. A hibiscus bush. I'm like, what is significant about here? He says, it says right here doctors 29 through 35 every time you have this quote on folk flashback in your mind you see red there's red in a window and now you tell me there's a hibiscus bush in a window that's two miles from the windy sea and now we're on our way freaky right that thumping what was that

the hibiscus the wind blowing from the ocean the window are you like inside looking out or outside looking in what he had determined to determine was who done it he's like i'm not going to block an enzyme and cure you i'm not going to stop uptake of cells with prozac can kill you that's not going to work if you can name it you can tame it we need to name it oh i've never heard that either if you can name it you can tame it all right we need to we're going to find it then we're going to tame it right so um this is just one-on-one session with you and this doctor huh well he's he was he i feel like i'm talking to him right now you he was very, very freaky, man. I mean, the way he could have a conversation with you, like one time,

he goes, I've noticed in your self-talk that you use a lot of absolutes. I've heard you say nobody likes me more than once. I've heard you say everybody hates me more than once and I was like yeah everyone does kind of hate me and he said everybody it's 5 billion people

I'm like no it's not someone I mean he's like well you said everybody about 100 million people do 100 million people hate you I'm like stop come on he's like

50,000. I'm like, you're getting to me. 50,000, do 25,000 people? I'm like, I'm not talking. He's like, about 50. I go, maybe. That I can believe. He even had this one time where he came in and he said, permission to speak freely and i said no you did you said no i love that you said now because every time he he walked in the room he dropped an adam bomb i'm like i'm like i'm like really really tired it's just haymaker after haymaker bro yeah just give you yeah it's just like Tyson every day Tyson walks in like Tyson's come in it you know he says Has anyone ever told you that you're an asshole? I was like, yeah, I guess, I guess.

He's like, how many times today? It's only 10 o'clock in the morning. It must have happened by now. I'm like, all right. I'm sorry. I had to apologize to him because I was an asshole. I mean, I'd say weird shit to him, too. too like I remember one time he said to me I forget what we were talking about but I said

hey listen pal now you listen to me all right buddy I don't know what you're telling me about this and that and something happened to me and shit like that I'm saying I've been on the most popular TV show of all time you got that I'm saying I've met four American presidents they know me by my first name do you understand what I'm trying to bring out here And you get getting up all in my face and shit. I know what I'm doing. And he said, do you? Where are your keys?

I'm like, fuck. Like, no, I know he's fucking around again. I'm like, my keys. He's like, to your apartment. Where are the keys to your apartment? I was like, someone took them. He's like, who?

Oh, my God's, who, who took your keys from you? I'm like, state of New York. The state of New York took your keys. Oh, my God. So while you're dazzling them up on the high wire, as you have just described, the state of New York has taken your keys. I don't know about you, but I don't believe. This is like a high five moment to understand.

I'm like, shut up. I mean, he just, but he was so, he was so smart. You couldn't, you couldn't beat him. He couldn't beat a person with a brain like that, right? You also wonder how many different Daryl Hammonds have been in there. and every angle they've tried on this guy he's probably seen you and believe who had had i won't say her name but this major star who a woman who i've admired had the same bed she was there before me oh really yeah i mean the cat the cat it worked for her yeah it's a big psychiatric facility in

upstate new york called the haven and it's got 14 separate psychiatric facilities for every mental disorder you know known to man and by the way how long are you in there three months okay actually i did i think eight weeks there and then they sent me to another one as a sort of what do you call it to sort of working me way back into society like halfway house it wasn't a halfway house because there's a lot of therapy there but it just wasn't this intense gotcha so it was a a three-month experience so now he tells you this isn't a big high-five moment here for you yeah so he probed We had a housekeeper named Murtis who I adored, and no one was paying attention to me back at those days.

I'm talking about nobody was paying attention to me. I mean, you sit alone in that house hour after hour after hour and dustballs roaming aimlessly across the floor, and no one's paying attention to me, except her. and you can tell when you're being touched by someone who loves you, you know, am I right? Oh, yeah, 100%. And she did. And I remember when, I don't know if I should give away. Anyone can listen to Karee, and you can hear what this is about. I'll just tell you how he worked up to it.

He came in one day and said, tell me, her name is Mardis, he's like, tell me about, he called her Mertes, tell me about Mertes, tell me about Moutis, I'm like, he's like, did you love her? I'm like, I did, yeah, see? He's like, did she love you? I'm like, I thought she did, but it's like, my mom told me. that I was this way that I was mentally ill he says don't ever say mentally ill it's mentally injured you did not get this way by accident this didn't suddenly occur

something brought you here there was more powerful than you so say mentally injured well I said all right my mom told me I was mentally injured because Murtis would jump out of the closet at night and scare me. You could almost see him humming to himself. He says, where did Mertie sleep? I'm like, what is that? What is that, what's that supposed to mean? He's like, where did Mertis sleep?

Did she sleep on a couch? Did she have her own room? Did she have a pallet on the floor where she lay? I said Mardis didn't sleep. She went home every day at 5 o'clock. And he says, then how can she jump out of the closet to scare you at night? That's when it broke open. Why would your mother tell you something like this?

I remember this. I don't know if you've ever had this happen, but, well, if you've ever gotten too drunk and you wake up the next day and you know you're going to throw up, you don't want, but it's coming. And that was when I realized that my lifelong search was about the end. Like, what had happened to me? What did happen? you know and he used a series of psycho i guess the theatrical exercises um he already knew when it happened to find out what went down exactly you really believe when he excuse me you say

he knew how early you think when he walked in that room day one he knew not maybe who or what but what he was going to uncover yes you do huh yeah I don't think he knew if it was just sexual. I don't know if he knew it was just a beating. But something terrible had happened. There was trauma. And like. And is that hypiscus bush outside your window?

No one went into his hospital that got there because of a piece of newspaper that blew up on the side of their leg. I don't care what any of the doctors were saying. No one in that whole big hospital. was there that didn't have an antecedent that was a big phrase of his there's always an antecedent you can always find out how this started so is that when you realize i'm asking is that hibiscus uh plant outside your window outside the window the kitchen the kitchen okay where um i and well i was stabbed and he yeah wait she stabbed you yeah what yes where in the tongue what for what for what i think that's just where she was starting

she she was just starting there she was going to go much further but she was interrupted by murders wait you're talking about your mom yes oh i thought you meant murders no oh the whole time I'm thinking Mertis stabbed your mom was stabbing you injuring you do you think that's also why or maybe you know is that also why you chose cutting to to thousand percent stab wow and she used a serrated steak knife she did so so Mertis saw this and stopped it that's why Mertis is no longer here yes I see so how long does that go on my father came home and freaked and i guess marters told him what happened or whatever he freaked and he's i he believed he had everything he had to institutionalize her which he did and did that happen yes it did when i guess i was four when this happened four and a half something like that wow so you don't

remember any of that no i just remembered that she was gone and that murders was still there but then when she came back murdice left and someone ended up stabbing her i don't stabbing your mom murdus murdus yeah she was stabbed by somebody she lived i i think so I didn't hear that she died and I you know there was a time when I I was with these guys I know all these FBI guys and stuff through NBC because I had death threats over there a why imitating presidents and shit yeah you're getting death threats off oh yeah that's crazy like real sophisticated stuff yeah I mean we can get to that one if you want to I don't know much time we have we got plenty of time but I want to go back real quick to this so

When does your mom reenter your life then? What age are you when she's? Maybe when she reenters around six or seven or something like that. And then she's fine or she's still doing this? I don't think she's fine because she, she, you know, this is someone who's the pillar of the church. You can quote scripture better than anyone you've ever heard of. You know, Monsters, I'll tell you the theme of the show, the themes, the basic things. and one of them is that real monsters hide in the light.

They do their work in the dark, but in the light, they have a narrative and they put on a show so that everyone believes it. They've got to get people to believe stuff. And she may have, maybe she enjoyed the Bible. Maybe she was a bifurcated personality. I mean, I don't, maybe, but she could quote scripture. The other thing about my mother is that she could do impressions. She would do impressions of the neighbors.

So I did my first impressions with her, porky pig. And it was a good way to keep her happy so that she didn't get, she used to have this vacant stare. Let me get my glasses. I can do this for you. She used to have this vacant stare. And, you know, she's flitting around and she's talking to people. Oh, I love your hair.

I love you so much. God loves you. God ain't broke. Don't you worry about your debt. the fact that you lost your job because God ain't broke. Okay. I never heard of no one in our church to give his life to God. God ain't broke.

God ain't broke. She's the kind of person that could walk up to a person and tap them on the shoulder. I go, I like to see you. And this lady's stabbing your tongue just once. Well, thank God only once. and then the state of Florida lets her out and back around her children did she ever hurt your sister

we don't know my sister are you close enough that you've talked about this sort of thing my sister and I have never really talked about it I know my sister hit her with beat her up one time but no we ever talked about it you know that's why I didn't include her in the book or you know God if you're not up there

I'm fucked. Let's see. Your mom stare. Harper Collins. I did include my sister and all of that because she doesn't want it to be, you know. You're going to do mom stare. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was two.

One was, like, she'd be sitting at the window, she'd be at the window smoking. And then she- Inside. Huh? Inside smoking back. Yeah, yeah. well the windows are open yeah she's smoking maybe i have to take my glasses off so you can see it better she didn't smoking and then she would turn and look at me like

like she was trying to figure out the plot in the movie what am i going to do with you that kind of feeling and the other one was this one really very very very very very for this. Okay. Wait. Like that. Walking through the room, looking at you.

Don't moving and walking through looking at you like a, that's like a zombie. What kind of you are? Like, what was that? Like, I have a photo of Squeaky Fromm

that she's doing the same thing. She's smiling. Like, that one of the Manson girls? Yeah. She's smiling, but she's got those eyes. And you can, you can tell that she's already made up her mind. Yeah. And that's what that look is sort of like, man, I've already made up my mind.

Something's going to happen to you. So how does that fucking affect you at 50? Like, how does that hit you? And is your mom gone at that point? She passed at that point when you find out when you connect all these dots. She passed a little before that when the, like I hadn't, she had passed before we figured the whole thing out. But she knew because I did, I reached a point where I was going to tell the whole world no matter what. because here's the thing the crime is is a bad enough crime the greater crime to me is that

they expect you not to talk about it it's the it's the contract 101 between perp and victim if you do talk about it it's going to be much worse do we understand are we clear so you're going to let me come in here and do shit to you And you're going to act like I'm not doing shit to you, okay? Or I'll make it a lot worse. That's the contract. And of course, then, too, you know, when you're young, you will fight the world. You will put, you will be a fist fight.

You'll get in a fist fight with the galaxy if they try to convince you that your mom doesn't love you or your parents don't love you. right you'll do anything it will drive you crazy you know to even think of anything like that we don't think of thoughts as radioactive or nuclear or that poisonous but they are to really have that i'm not loved you can make you pretty sick so three months you spend there is that right you said three months yeah um and when does so do you have to have to ask you this You said the state took away your keys. So do you have to be released by the state, by this doctor?

I had to be released by the doctor. And when did he feel comfortable enough to say, hey, we figured enough out you can move forward with this? He figured it out because he had put me through this process that manipulated me through a process in which I could feel pity for my mother. he was like nothing frees you from your perpetrator any better than a little sympathy for the devil like i felt pity and fear for her he it's a long-involved story with a series of nightmares and dreams and all that but but that's what happened he could tell and and for my whole life I know that I heard a ringing a kind of ringing like when I would get really afraid there would be kind of a ringing and nothing could get a and it's not 10 either so whatever they call

that and what had happened was the ringing stopped it did yeah what about the boom boom boom all stopped all of it do you do you did you ever put together what the knock was you got the hibiscus the window kitchen the Atlantic Ocean was blowing the high abyscus bush against the way ah that was the knock knock damn was there any more abuse like was she physical after that or did she stop or do you not remember well i certainly don't remember it if she was you know um but she did what did you find in sympathy what did you what what did you say all right because for her to do that to me someone had to do something just as horrible to her i was going to ask you i wonder what happened this late this is the other part of the

the sort of manifesto and that is bonsters aren't born they're created you know in order to be a monster you first have to be a monster's victim yeah and that's a great fucking point yeah that's that well in order to be a monster you first have to be a monster's victim yeah that's the truth i mean this cat was out of this he was out there so he releases you you're obviously clinging sober yeah that was like a big deal to how did it was um i i i i i I gained a bunch of weight and a bunch of time we've gone by, and he came to me and said, you know, we're going to have to put you on a diet when I wanted to be a diabetic. You've gained so much weight because I was eating a lot of sugar.

And then he said, oh, and, you know, I have something else for you. And I'm like, what? And he's like, your keys. I'm like, what? Like my keys and I have keys again. I have keys again. You know what I mean? And a place to go to that's nice.

You're not being let out of this hospital and now you've got to bum a couch or whatever. You got a home to go to. And, you know, I get back to my apartment in New York City and it's a nice, it's nice-ish, you know, it's not, it's modest one-bedroom, but I loved it. You get back into your building and you walk in and the dormant's going, hey, Mr. Hammond, where you've been? See what the Yankees did last night? That fucking Sabathia is overweight. That's all I'm saying. They say he eats, they say that man eats Timble.

was the Captain Crunch a day. I say he could eat a few less. He's a little overweight that guy. He's a little rotund. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Like, well, anyway, I don't know where you've been, but, you know, he's nice to have your back, you know, and you're like, I'm like, how can they be acting like nothing

happened? I just had a whole journey. I've been on an odyssey to the other side, and they're just doing their thing and all that. and is that the moment you go clean and sober obviously you're in there for three months no i mean i'm cleaning sober a bunch of times you did and and drink again yeah four years three years five years no more self-harm though um i didn't do self-harm until uh i had a period there in my 30s when i was really starting 12-step programs i didn't do anything like that so i had like

five years and seven months and my sponsie committed suicide and And then I got drunk and, uh, jeez. Yeah. Man, I'm sorry. But, but, yeah. So how has life been since? And what? I mean, well, now that you're armed with the knowledge of what this was, um, how has it changed you?

Do you feel, do you feel different? Like, do you feel, I don't know, do you feel whole? Do you feel like at least this, this mystery has been solved and you can move forward, peacefully upstairs you know how are you sleeping how do you how do you go about your days are you a glass half full guy now or is anything so i get up in the morning and i do um cognitive therapy exercise might just be a little thing like you know um exercises out of the book feeling good exercises out of the book um learned optimist you know i do the five minute uh gratitude journal every morning i do that i like that um so that my brain doesn't have time to start it's done done

Dun, dun, done, done. Because my brain wants to catch a perp. That's what it does. It wants to catch a perp. So it starts creating these perps. Like, well, this guy must be that, or that girl must be that, or this must be that. And pretty soon I can feel in danger.

And so I do the cognitive therapy, and I'm going to say five days a week I do yoga. Okay. And are you able to sit mentally quiet enough with your thoughts in something like yoga? It's always struggle for me. Well, no, but when I meditate, sometimes, I get that sometimes. When I'm hanging out with people that are like me, you've heard the connection is the antidote to addiction. But when I have that law of mutuality that Hindus spoke of 25 million.

years ago. A shared experience can bring us health that living alone we can't get. You know, when I have that, so there are times, you know, when I have a piece and I have to work for it. Not all the time, but it does happen. Once in a while, sweat a gut. Once in a while, I feel pretty good. You do. Once in a while. I hear you. I'm out with my friends have dinner. Hey, we did a show with Leno and Arsenio and Margaret show the other night. That was great. It was fun. Do you allow yourself in the moment to think of that?

I could help myself. It was one of those nights. Good for you. When the room, these guys are rocking it. And I was able to hold my own, which I was worried about. It was a great night of comedy. I felt really good that night. Then my friend Christy was there. We went to

swingers and felt good. So it happened sometimes. but um listen this has been a very powerful great episode you've dropped a lot of knowledge on here um i have to tell you you can keep going if you want no right that's an hour that's good if i ever will you come back yeah i want to tell you the mafia story for god's sake how long is it probably 90 seconds tell it and then i'll tell you what tell the mafia story that i'm going to ask you advice you'd give to 16 year old Daryl Hammond after everything we've talked about and we'll wrap it up hit me with a mafia story i i ask you because we just had sammy the bull gravana on here

so i would love to hear a mafia story okay so um i had um i was put in jail in the caribbean that's how i wrote the book god if you're not up there i'm fucked i was in jail and that was the only prayer that i could come up with because it was this the caribbean jail is a really scary place what are you in there for controlled possession of a possession of a controlled substance and i got off with a fine because it was just infinite it was like putting sweet no on the table it might have been sweet i was so drunk i couldn't fucking tell you know i i never actually did the blow it was just like okay oh boy someone was trying to sell me blow and i was like okay i had a lot of golden rum that night and it was trashed out of my mind so i was like oh okay

way, I got arrested and went to jail. My father came down with cash, and they let me off for cash. How old are you? Oh, shit. 30s? Okay. My 30s. Okay, so I went back to the States, and I was mad at them.

I was mad. I felt like I'd been set up. Others felt the same way that I was part of a scam, find a drunk tourister, and ask him if he wants a little Coke. Just a sample. You want a sample? You're going to get one drunk enough to say, okay, and then you bust them after that. So I was, and since I got back to New York City, one night I did a show at Dangerfields in New York, and I was drinking rum, again, of course. and it occurred to me

there was a very famous gangster that had a social club on Mulberry Street and everyone knew he hung out there and he was real famous it occurred to me that you know how the drunker you get the more right you think you are right

and the angry you get the more right you think you are and you're drinking rum and shit and I was drinking rum and I get in a cab my feet I don't even know if I was telling my feet to do my feet walked me to a cab and i heard my voice say the so-and-so social club on mulberry street

he's like you sure you want to feel it yeah you should you're all right you need you i'm like oh man so i went down there i was going to ask them i want i was going to join i was like can i join you guys can i be part of your group there's somebody i really want to kill He's coming insane, that shit. And we get there. That was what I was going to say. It became a blur after that because there were a bunch of men standing on the sidewalk. And I walked up and I waited in.

When my bitch. And it got all blurry after that. And I probably had some sort of blackout or something. And I woke up the next morning on a pile of sand behind the social club. Uh-uh. Yes. I woke up on a pile of sand and my shirt was covered in red.

And I touched it because it didn't look like blood that much and I tasted it. And it was marinerosol. Apparently I'd eaten well. It was to kill somebody and you fucking pants out. You wake up outside

on the sand covered give the guy some skungile you give me give him some give him something throw him out back put him out on the sandpile yeah on the sandpan he put your ass out back yeah all right let me ask uh we'll wrap up on advice that you'd give to 16 year old darrell hammond what would you say to 16 year old darrell hamman i'm curious because you don't find out a lot for god 34 more fucking years. I don't know what. What can you say? What would I say, you know?

Go see a shrink? Yeah. I think what I would want to tell him is you're going to meet five American presidents. Five men presidents of the United States would call you by your first name.

Hold on. That's awesome. I got to ask you, both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Trump and Trump. You didn't mean Trump. That's great. Thank you so much. This was an awesome episode. I really appreciate you doing this. One more time, please promote Kray. Kray is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets the King's Speech at Saturday Night Live. Was that accurate? That's 100% accurate, yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for thinking of me. You got it. As always, Ryan Sickler on all your social media, we'll talk to you all next week.