The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 365: Jessica Michelle Singleton | The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler #365 | Full Episode

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

SPONSORS: Tempo -For a limited time, get 60% off your first box at https://www.TempoMeals.com/HONEYDEW My HoneyDew this week is comedian Jessica Michelle Singleton! Check out Jessica’s latest special “Hi Y’all” or her own podcast Hey Idiots. Jessica joins me to Highlight the Lowlight of growing up in Alaska and finding out the truth about her real dad identity! From being abandoned in a Waffle House at 8 years old, to catching mom in a crisis, and dealing with friends being murdered in High School, this episode is full of stuff you have to hear! Check out my new standup special “Live and Alive” streaming on my YouTube now! https://youtu.be/PMGWVyM2NJo?si=SrhXjgzR1pe6CyYE 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! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey guys, very important announcement. Do not skip this. In two weeks on January 6th, we are doing our best of 2025 honeydew with you all review. And our special guest this time is Tom Seagora. So here's the deal. We are shifting the start time of that episode to 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. And I will be live in the comments with you the entire episode. Let's have some fun with it. And Thursday, January 8th is the episode of the way back with my brothers. You guys been asking for years. There it is. So make sure you click that link now. Set your reminder. I'll see you all in the premiere.

The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to the honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the Nightpants Studios. I'm Ryan Sickler. Ryan Sickler.com. Ryan Sickler on all your social media. I'm apologize to my guest. and you guys right now for this right here my Rudolph knows no it's not cocaine i've never done

cocaine in my life you know what this is this old age bro this is seep nasal pillows guys that's what this is seapap nasal pillows and i'm not going to say hey look we got to cancel an episode i got a guest here today we got to work so guess what i'll do my best to stay down but we're here to put it in all right thank you guys for supporting the show Thank you for support anything I do, especially when I look like this. But I'm very excited. You know what we're doing here, guys. We highlight the low lights and I always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers.

I'm very excited to have this guest on with us today. First time here on the do. Ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Michelle Singleton. Welcome to the Honeydew. Oh, my God. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. CEPP scars and all.

I apologize. I apologize. I'm going to do my best to stay away from your distracting you. But before we get into what we're going to talk about today, Please, right there, plug everything and anything you would like. Awesome. You guys can follow me everywhere at JMS comedy on any social media. I have a new special called Hi, Y'all, out on punchup.

Live slash JMS. And I have a podcast called Hey, Idiots. So it's just mostly me being an idiot. And that's that. Oh, and if you like country music, I release country music under an alias, normally wild. I was about to ask you, I thought I saw that. Is that right? You really do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a few songs out. As a singer-songwriter? Yeah, singer-songwriter. Oh, great. What's your alias called? Norma Lee Wild. Norma Lee Wild.

Still three names. I can't let it go. And what is that? Where is it on Spotify? Spotify? Apple music. Where are you listening to music? You can find me.

Yeah, yeah. I did that in the pandemic. I don't know. You had never done that before? No, I'd never done it before. Just something you always wanted to do? Yeah, something I always wanted to do. And I think I spent a few years in California being a little embarrassed to like country

music. And then I was like, you got to do is go 15 minutes outside of Los Angeles. People don't realize this. If you just go north, that's all cowboys and farm and cow. It smells like cow shit the whole way to San Francisco. That party's a bummer. And then you've got all in here, all the inland. You've got Burbank.

It's all equestrian cowboys. Yes. So many horses. Yeah. And then Buck Owens and all that stuff. From Bakersfield. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love that shit. It's all cowboy. Yeah. It just is like, I don't know. There's certain. If people.

aren't into or they don't know about like country music they didn't grow up somewhere where it's the normal some people hear country music i think it's shifting now it's getting cooler but people go like what you're your cousin and you're like i mean i tried i don't know he said no no he said it's like all right well just get on the horse then i have a i have the concert ticket still right here and out in the studio, but it was called stagecoach back then. It still is called stage coach. I'm sorry, it was before stage coach. It was, um, it's what stage coach became.

It was at the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion's what they called it back then. Wow. And it was, uh, just, you know, wherever they do stagecoach, it's there. Yeah. And it was, God, everybody, George Strait, Hank Williams, Jr. Both, we've seen them all. Yeah. Oh, damn.

Mm-hmm. Man, I would kill to see George Strait. Mm-hmm. Oh, the king. He's the best. He is the best. I love country. I love old country.

That movie Dusty. You ever see Dusty? No. With George Straight? No. It's called Dusty. Damn. We have to look it up.

Okay. Let's get into your story because you have quite a, quite a different upbringing. So we start in the South. Is that where you're born? Where are you born? Actually, I was born in Germany. Born in Germany. Yeah, born in Germany.

Is your dad or mama military? My dad was Air Force. Yeah. So we lived in Germany until I was about three. And then... Did your parents meet in Germany? No, my parents met in Florida. Okay, so meet here.

Yeah. Military and mom and dad go together to Germany. Yeah, yeah. They go from Florida to California, actually, Victorville. I stationed out there where they had my brother. Speaking of cowboys. I know. And then got pregnant with me, then restationed to Germany.

So then I popped out in Germany. Okay. Yeah, in the... And when do you come back to the States? I was three. So 90, 1990. Oops. I mean, what?

It was it? No one knows. 2002. So, all right, you're back in the States. Where do you go? Is that when you go to Mississippi? Mississippi. My dad got stationed at Kiesler Air Force Base on the Gulf Coast.

It's in Biloxi. And then we lived one little town over, a quiet little town called Ocean Springs. It's a little cute. I like to call it, it's like the nice part of Mississippi. I call it Beverly Hills have eyes. But it was just the beautiful. Is there an ocean or springs anywhere near this fucking place? There's the Gulf of America.

Tell you what? Right there. Right there on the coast. Yeah. People getting sprung out on meth. That's, uh, but I mean, as little kids, a beautiful place to grow up. You're right there. There's marshes and go to the beach.

And do you have brothers, sisters? I have one. I had one. older brother, have one older brother, Tom, and then later on when my mom remarried, got some stepbrothers. But in there, you know, it was me and my older brother, my mom and my dad in Mississippi. Yep. Yeah. And then do your parents, they split? They split. They got a divorce. They got a divorce. My parents had a few rough years before they just finally called it quits. It was violence. Violence. Yeah. It was just one of those things where, I mean, when you're a little kid,

I think about this a lot. I had to get much older to go, oh, that's actually not what everyone's parents were doing. It was just a lot of loud fighting, cops getting called because everyone's screaming at each other. Oh, you're having that. Are you on a military base during this time, too? No. So we didn't live in military housing. We lived in a nice little neighborhood.

And I would just, I think it's a classic kid thing, just go back in my room, had my little boombox. I think it's what helped my creativity in a weird way. Just spend a lot of time in my room. in my imagination. I agree. Being grounded was actually ended up long term good for me. Yeah, it's like, oh. Short term, I was like, man, fuck you all.

You're ruining my wife. Long term, I was like, man, thank you for that. Thank you for the solitude. I'm late. I fucked up. Yeah, yeah, it taught me a lot. So, yeah, when I was about, let's see, probably from kindergarten through my dad leaving, it was a lot of loud screaming.

And my mom's an alcoholic, recovered now. My dad, I didn't know at the time, but once he retired from the military, he got into some hard drugs working at a shipyard. May or may not have been getting a little involved with the Dixie Mafia. But so we got into meth. And so it's not a great combination. And then when I was eight, my dad left me in a waffle house. What do you mean? He just went to the car and drove away.

Wait. Hold on a little bit. Let me go get my wallet. By yourself? By myself. You're not there with your brother and mom? No. I make a joke about it in my special where I go, yeah, it's fucked up.

Like, how fucked up is my mom? He's like, I better leave her somewhere. She'll be better taken care of. Jessica. You're one-on-one. You got like a dad-daughter day and he's just like deuces and left you to walk around. Peace out. Yeah.

I swear to God. When do you realize he's gone? Does he say I'm going on the restroom or I'll be right back? Yeah, he would be right back. He goes in the car. He said, I'll be right. back and then leaves and then I'm like you saw him drive away and was like

I'm sure he'll be back how old are you ate? Do you remember what you're eating? Yep, a waffles with strawberries on top Do you fucking hate waffles now? Dude, that's my mom or do you just eat yeah there's a feeling I forgot for years my dad passed away in 2020 and like it I had all these like years of resentment and anger and stuff because that wasn't the last time I saw him he was

back in my life and whatever. And then he left again. But it was like I buried my childhood memories. Those like went away with all my anger. And then when he died, it was like this dump of good memories, which is what happens. Fucking people get a rewrite on the script. You go, what that one time? And I forgot.

It was like my go-to. I get a waffle, Belgian waffle if you're out of Denny's. And it's like, it's not Belgian. What is a Belgian waffle? I don't know. With strawberries on top. It was my favorite breakfast. And then I was like, damn, I quit eating waffles after that.

I bet. That was my favorite thing. And I was just like, no. I don't even want to look at a pancake. In eight years. So who comes to get you? I just got a ride home from. What are you talking about?

Yeah, from a local. The thing is it's like in my- Small towns. Everybody sort of knows. Okay, I get it. I get that South Mississippi. I get it's not Los Angeles. Just got a ride home.

So someone realizes this fucking girl, or did they kind of know? who you were or what? It was like a realization. Like this little girl's still sitting here. Still sitting here. And I got a ride home from what's fucked up is like this I kind of didn't. This memory was buried until like my 20s. And then I was like, wait a second. That's like there's things that you forget are like so fucked up because they're just part of what happened. Yeah. You said it though. Like we talk about it on this show a lot. Like a lot of people don't realize like shit's not normal until you go spend a night at somebody else's house and you see how their parents are.

And wait, there's two of them. Yeah. And they're hugging you guys. Breakfast? And you have cereal up in your cabinets and yeah. Y'all break? They're saying nice things to you guys and stuff. Good job.

They got your artwork on the fridge. And then you realize that's not going on in my house. Dude, my mom's just asking her cigarettes on us. It's quite an awake. It's quite a way. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. And you just go, this is, this is different.

They're not drinking. They're not yet. No, they're not rocking back and forth to the Eagles at full volume at 10 a.m. blacking out on Heineken. Dude, my mom used to do this thing that I thought was normal. And now I'm like, that's like, dude, she would be on the couch holding a Heineken, glasses down here. And I don't know. I just, when I said glasses, it turned into Sebastian. Glasses down here. But like, and my mom has a lazy eye. She's got like a crazy eye. I call it anything about a lazy eye. It's fucking like active. But in her 90s, she always had these like 90s in holding a hide-again, no hand cigarette on the lip, you know, these people don't fucking know, blasting eagles. And she would do, I'm not kidding. This was her like dancing, but she'd be like this.

And I just thought like, that's what moms do. And I'm like, that's, is that schizophrenia? What are you doing, dude? Let me tell you something. It's wild. You just said schizophrenia because I do have a cousin. older now. He's probably in his 70s. He was my dad's first cousin, but

we grew up knowing him, and he's a paranoid schizophrenic, and he smokes cigarettes all day long. He smokes a carton in three days. And has for decades. He has no cancer. His mom's dead. Really? He has cancer. Fuck.

He killed her from the second hand smoke. If I have a Margarine's dead of cancer, he's still going truck. He's still fucking trucking. We're all like, how do you have a throat to burn itself, you know? God. So he smoked cigarettes. And I never realized that my brother one time goes you ever see how gary smokes a cigarettes i go what do you mean he goes he never takes it farther than here and then i started looking and he didn't he would just

it's like a it's like a safety brain care and he's power hitting him but the whole time he does that my mom he takes it he does that fucking what that's that's that's schizophrenic rock yeah and dude my mom i mean my mom is wild and it's so funny she's the same she doesn't smoke now because she got copcd That didn't stop her for years. And then she finally got lung cancer, which they caught stage one and have radiated. She's doing okay. But this bitch tried to be like,

because she was a civilian employee for the military for years. What's that mean exactly? Like she, when we lived in Mississippi, she was like the executive assistant to like the top commander on base. And then we moved from Mississippi to Alaska because she got a job at the time with fish wildlife. Okay, can we pause for one second and go back here? Wait. Yeah. You go home from the

fucking Waffle House. Yeah. What do you say to mom? Nothing. And I forgot because my mom didn't know this story for years. Her and my brother were out of town for a soccer tournament. I just let myself in. They weren't even there. No. And they came home like a date later. I guess the thing is. That brother you're talking about your older brother. Is he biological? Your older one. It's complicated. Did dad leave two biological kids that day? Well, here's the fucked up thing. As far as we knew, yes, as far as my brother and I knew.

Years later, I found out, thanks to a loudmouthed drunk older stepbrother, that actually neither of us are biological kids. My dad couldn't have kids. They tried. And he was, you know, shooting blanks or whatever. And so they went to a sperm bank. I'm from a sperm bank in Beverly Hills. Dude, my dad spent all that money, like 80s sperm bank money just to be like, nah, never mind.

For two kids? Yeah. And because of- Your older brother and you are both, are you both from the same donor? My mom said we were. And then I did 23 and me. And I found out I'm from whoever my sperm donor is, I'm mostly Ashkenazi Jewish. And I thought we were going to find out. Would you grow up?

I grew up thinking. I'm German and Irish. Okay. German and Irish, and that's it. And then I'm mostly Jewish. Nicole, Amy Schreiber, if you know her. She's the first person I told. She's like, I knew it.

I knew it. There's no way you're that funny and that neurotic and you're not a Jew. And I'm like, you can't say that. She's like, but I can. You are. It's in our bones. And I told my mom, dude, my mom, the first thing she says, she goes, that makes sense.

When you were born, the first thing I said was, she looks like an ugly Jew baby. And I was like, that's the first thing. What a wild thing? for a mom with her cigarette. Yeah, in the hospital bed. She goes, well, you look like a tiny Billy Joel. Just rocking and squeezing you out. You just get it

out of me. Get that ugly dude baby out of me. Yeah, she's like, it's fine. Then your hair turned blonde. That's not just a, you know, casual thing. That's a process you go through. So mom kept that hidden the whole time. Yeah, I guess it's a lengthy process for her.

Oh, yeah. Or whoever it was. Turkey based. Yeah. Yeah. That's so wild to me. And people, they go, you know, we're only getting top tier donors. And I'm like, the topest tier that needs money for coming in a cup. Like, how high could that tier possibly be?

But yeah, I guess they tried to have a kid and then wasn't working. They did a bunch of fertility testing. Found out my dad has something called Kleinsfelter syndrome, which is, it's a genetic mutation when you have an extra sex chromosome. He had XXY. I think it's XXY. So what the hell's that due to you? It does a lot of things. Makes you shoot blanks.

I can't confirm this, but from what I've read it, makes you have extremely small balls. Tiny balls. Yeah. And by the way, my older brother... You got an extra chromosome. All those chromosome and no balls. He... Oh, this is what's crazy.

He had a big midsection. He was a bigger guy. As soon as when you retire from the military, really put on weight in his stomach. It makes the men have like more hips. They're more hippie, tall, often lower intelligence, anger issues. You know, these are all things it's like maybe everyone doesn't have them. But here's the crazy one is you don't get adult teeth. What?

His baby teeth fell out. No. I'm not kidding. Because of this extra chromosome, you don't. So my. It stops teeth too. It stops teeth. So.

So my whole childhood, he had dentures. And as a little kid, I thought, you know, men get older, 31, 32, they got to get dentures. I thought, when you're little, that seems so old. And now, looking back, I'm like, dude, of course he got into meth. He already didn't have teeth. Who gives a fuck? He's got female hips. He's just like, who won't so?

Yeah. Let's just do it up. Just a wild animal. And so when they figured that out, they started going to. a sperm bank. I mean, I've had friends go, your mom seems like a pretty wildcard. It was a sperm bank. We sure she wasn't just hitting the bars. But let me ask you this, though, because how long did your mom know your dad? Like how long they date or whatever? I don't think it was long. Okay, but he comes without teeth. She knew.

He comes with half. You know what I'm saying? He's rolling up when they meet before you guys are born. You must have figured out the dentures at some point. Something had to happen. Because he puts him in a bowl of cleaner every night. At some point. And you thought I should have a kid with this. I watched everybody else's teeth fall out and new ones growing and I didn't. You would think somebody would look into that. Yeah.

You know, your mom would be like, that might be a genetic thing. Yeah. Maybe I wonder. And then your body's a little different. Yeah. Even not. Oh, and then she's definitely playing with his balls. Dude.

You're trying to have a baby. That's I wonder how blind she was. I'm like, damn, how bad is your vision that you didn't even notice? She might have been. smoking a whole time. Smoked what is just, you know, Vader.

Is it cloudy? Squinted up. She's like, out of all there somewhere. Okay, so his little balls didn't make babies.

Yeah, there's no swimmers. And mom gets a sperm donor. Yeah, she goes to, at the time was, she told me Beverly Hills Cryobank,

which doesn't exist anymore. And you can do a, I don't know if it's called like a closed. That's what's called with adoption, but. But your brother was first. He was first.

Okay. And my mom had like, the thing is that she goes, your dad was shooting blank. It's like, yeah, but you also had like three or four miscarriages

from the sperm banks. Let's not just put this all on dad. Dude, God was running defense on these people. He was like, you can't, you're not going to do a good job. You know?

Like, he's like, just something else. Get a cat, dude. So she has my brother in 84. And then I think they had a miscarriage in between me. And then she got pregnant

with me from the sperm bank. And, And as far as I know, she was told it was the same sperm donor. But they probably were like, no one's ever going to know. But you said you did the 23 and me. From the white bucket. Well, I got, that's the thing is, at first it was just me. And then there was, of course, you know, 23 and me had a sale.

Like, tell your family. And I got my mom and my brother 23 of me. And then they did it. And it turns out he's my half brother. He is. Yeah. Yeah. So different donors.

He's, I thought when my mom got 23. I thought we were. going to find out actually the Jewish is from my mom's side because you don't know until you have a parent. It just shows you like it's your mix. And I thought we'd find out, oh, their family had buried it because they came from Germany. Their last name is Fink. And my family is very like, just kind of some stereotypes that in my mind are Jewish, but I think it's just New York. They're from Long Island, just loud and funny and I don't know. I'm the only due in the family. My brother's sperm donor is British, much more.

British and I'm like that explains the teeth but yeah yeah it so it was just like a weird and what's weird is I found out about my dad being a sperm donor from my older stepbrother from my dad second marriage when I was in college and I told my brother and I think he just thought I was like being absurd when did you find out I found out when I was 18 how you said he blurted it out yeah you had like a party or so I went to college in Florida This is actually, it feels kind of pathetic. My dad left, he went to Florida. Then we would do like, you know, in the summertime, we'd go see him.

From Alaska, you're going all the way to Florida. Yeah, yeah. Like, well, in Mississippi, then we moved to Alaska. I think I went and saw him once. And then I remember I was supposed to go see him for Thanksgiving in high school. And I was like so excited. I was like, I'm going to see my dad. And I got to the airport.

And I'm a freshman in high school. And I fucking hated my stepdad. I hated Alaska. I was depressed. I was miserable. I get to check in and they go, oh, miners can't fly alone. And I was like, what? And they're like, yeah, you have to have someone accompany you. For some reason, I think it was Delta Airlines. And I was like that, but you didn't bring that up in the purchasing of the ticket. So I couldn't go. And I was like, heartbroken. Because I, oh, no, it's too early to cry. No. Fucking hell. I just, I just, I loved my dad.

Like, it took a long time to go like, oh, like, see all the, like, fucked up shit. But anyway, he lived in Florida. I went to college in Florida. I was like, I'll be closer to dad. He was, like, two hours away. Did you do that on purpose? Kind of, maybe. It was a combination.

First of all, the college I went to, I didn't even apply to. My mom applied because she's like, you have family in Tampa. She knew I was going to go somewhere. My mom knew I wanted to get the fuck out of Alaska. we had no money for college so much so that there's too much to tell you in my senior year of high school

my mom I came home and she was trying to kill herself she was drunk on NyQuil and she'd been sober at that point for like five or six years and I don't even know I don't think she knew she was like fucked up I got a call for my stepdad I'm driving a hockey practice

and I get a call from my stepdad you played hockey? Yeah like ice hockey Ice hockey, not field hockey. Just fucking, yeah, dipping on the bench. I was so bad, too. I was on the team because they didn't have enough girls. It was like a girl's team.

And my friend Ashley, who was really good, was like, we need more bodies to have a team. So I was like fifth line. And they would only put us out when like we were way up or like it was hopeless. So we'd get out there. It was just me. And actually another comedian who lives out here now. She just caught Alyssa Yeoman.

She was in Seattle for you. But we were on the same line in high school hockey. and just fucking out there like, we're doing it. But I'm driving to practice. I get a call from my stepdad, and he's like, hey, I got a weird message from your mom. Can you turn around and check on her? And in retrospect, I'm like,

why didn't you go home to your wife, you fucking asshole? I get home. She's fucking drunk on NyQuil. And I'm like, what's going on? She's like belligerent. And she goes, well, she was like looking for her keys. She's like, I just need my keys.

And I'm like, why? You can't drive. She's like, well, I was going to run the car in the garage. Just saying it casually like that. My mom is so casual. Like I'm going to go pick up some groceries. Yeah. She's like, but then I realized that like the gas might leak into the house.

That might affect you. And I was like, excuse me? What? What are you talking about? And she just goes, well, I know. that you, I cry all the time. I know that you, I was getting all these letters from colleges. I was getting into like, I over-applied because I was afraid I wouldn't get in anywhere.

And then I was getting, you know, into every school I applied to. And she goes, I know that you don't want to stay here. Because I could do in-state tuition in Alaska. I think I had a scholarship. Like, she's like, and I don't have money for you to go to college. But I thought if something happened to me, you're a life insurance. And I was like, what? Are you seriously saying this to you?

Yeah. And I'm like, also, I don't think you get it if you can get suicide. No, fucking, that's like pretty, probably bold print. I'm losing to. Dude, it's fucking, you. There it goes, mom and the money. Yeah, it's like, it's Alaska. You can't have, just go slip on the ice, bitch.

What are we doing? Anything. Go out, there's a bear. Bear. I'm about to say, bears are hungry. Dude, what are you doing? But, like, she's just like, I know you don't want to be here. It was like she didn't know how to handle her grief of me leaving.

And it's just so funny that she was having like empty nest panic attacks when it's like, you bitch, you have been neglecting me the whole time. And now you're like, what are I going to do? It was just her fucked up way of either trying to help or trying to be like wildly manipulative and make me feel bad about wanting to go out of state. But all that to say, all that, we'll just brush past that. And then I just had to stay there and sit there with her. I'd be like, no, it's, I would rather, I'd rather have a mom.

And she's just there like, but, and then when I look at those loans, no, I'm kidding. But she had applied for me to go to USF, which was in Tampa, and all of her siblings live in Tampa. So she's like, you know, you'll have family there. And plus my dad, I didn't know this until I was getting ready to go to college. He was in Florida. but their whole divorce, he had gotten to claim me as a dependent for some. That was in the fucking divorce deal. I don't know.

I didn't live with him. I was like, why is he claiming me as a dependent? But because of that, I could get in state tuition. I see. So anyway, I ended up, so it was a combination of things, but I did want to go closer to my dad. So I'd go every couple weeks. He was like two hours away from the college and I'd go and see him. So I was hanging out late night at his place.

You know, I went and visited him for the weekend. I'm hanging out with my older stepbrother. We're just drinking Bud lights and fucking shooting the shit. And I said something about how somebody said that I look like my brother, Tom.

At that point, biological, and he's like, you don't look anything like your brother, Tom. And I go, yeah,

I don't feel like I look like anyone in my family. I always kind of thought I was adopted or something. And he just made a face. It was like a, like a, like you don't know,

like that? And I was like, what was that? What was that? Because I did always have this, like, something doesn't click. And then he told me, he's like, you can't tell me, but I overheard your dad telling my mom. And then he made me promise never to tell you, but you're from a sperm bank. And now I'm like, right in this moment, I'm like, was he going to his new wife and being like, they're not even really my kids?

But I was like, what the fuck? He's like, you can't tell him, I told you. And I was like, maybe I can't tell him you told me. I'm supposed to just carry that in my heart and not mention it. Because I had also had a seizure at my first football game. It was because of heat exhaustion. I get like, dude, I have like an old Jew body. In Alaska, I break out into hives if I get too cold.

I learn that within a week of living in Alaska. And then I go to Florida because I'm like, got to get out of this cold. And then I just like have a seizure at a football game in a giant boat. I was like, I've been going, oh, well, my dad's mom has epilepsy and a cousin has epilepsy. And I'm like, that's important. None of that is in my health. What the fuck? And I did eventually, like, bring it up to my dad, but I tried to do this roundabout.

Like, I'm taking a genetics class. And so I need one of your cigarette butts because they're going to show us how our genes, you know, how we're related. And he didn't even think twice. He's like, all right. And then I was like, dad, listen. I know. And he was like, it doesn't. make me think, you know, I still think of you as my daughter.

That's why I didn't even think about it. Like you're my daughter. I mean, listen, that day I left you in Waffle House when you're eight. Yeah. Whoops-a-Daisy. I would have done it no matter what. Yeah. Hey, if you were from my balls.

Even if you had my eyes. My tiny balls. If you had my teeny tiny balls, I would have been out. I would have left your little ass. I still would have left you there with your big ass glasses in your bowl cut, eating your waffles. That's insane to leave a small child. Not a 16 year old or something, a 12, 13 who could take care of.

Eight years old. With a bowl cut and big glasses. It's like third grade. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I didn't know that. That breaks my heart. I can't.

My daughter's in fourth grade. I couldn't imagine just going to breakfast and be like, I'll be right back. And I'm just gone. And never coming back. I'm not. It builds character. Hoo. Okay.

Yeah. So that you find out. Yeah. And then you confront who first, dad or mom? Dad. And then it took me. a little while. I had to like work up to bring it up to my mom because I was like, I don't know why. He didn't call her and be like, hey, heads

up. No. He's just like, yeah, and I'm like, well, I mean, are you going to tell my brother? He's like, hey, your mother and I have an agreement that we were never going to tell you guys. And I'm like, so no. And then I go to my mom and you got to tell. You got to tell Tom. No, she didn't. She didn't. So you had to do it? Yeah. And what, how did he feel about it? He was like, what are you talking about? He just didn't believe me. Are you guys just blown away? Yeah. He's like, what? Because I'm just so, I'm always, I'm always, I don't know. I was such a weird kid growing up. And also, he is a drug addict. And I don't know because he's always in and out of allegedly being, you never know when someone's an addict. I have no idea where he really was in terms of his cleanness sobriety when I told him that. So I think he just thought it was like some weird Andy Kaufman bit I was doing. And he's like, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I remember in fourth grade, when you told everyone you were an alien from Venus. Okay. Sure. But then I think the 23 and me made him like, oh, oh, damn, that's crazy.

But it's just such a wild, I don't know. I guess there's a part of me I feel like bad being like, well, at least I don't have the leave your kid in a Waffle House gene. True, you don't. It's probably a good. What about what you do have, though? I drunk off in a cup. Dude, I'm documented Jewish, which could not be a great thing to have documented. what you are but now you got to go get you need to go get genetic testing and figure out what

you got going on in there what the hell stuff yeah it's a listen to me we talk about on this show all the time too like if you don't talk to your family or whatever anymore figure out what the fuck they have because what they have you probably have and that's important and they're going to get older and then shit doesn't hit sometimes cancer leukemia whatever and you're like oh i have that and I might get it in my 60s or seven like it's important and you don't even fucking know except for your mom's side my mom's side obviously but you don't know the the whole side donor side and that is can you or do they have that information no there's no way for me to get all that information other I mean 23 me does show you like some genetic predispositions and of course but

they go like if you pay more and you're like fuck you guys you're keeping that behind a paywall but I so I do have like a couple you know they have a roll of decks of things they test for. So there's a couple things that I have like a gene for, like late onset Alzheimer's. And I have no idea where that, what side that comes from. Or if it will, you know, they say it and they're very clearly like, just because you have the gene, doesn't mean it'll express, whatever. And then like a slightly increased chance of glaucoma. But yeah, there's so much I don't know. And it's like that to me is the, I don't need to find this guy and be like, Daddy, you know, but there was a while when I was single where I was

Well, this is dangerous. He was in Beverly Hills. I'm a fucking older Jewish guy. We don't know. What if I fuck my dad? But I need. What if I fuck? Or I was a brother. As the holidays creep closer, the days get busier. Routines get thrown off with parties, feast and endless to-dos. That's when I reach for tempo. Real meals, already cooked, ready in minutes, and actually good for you, helping me stay balanced while still enjoying the celebrations. Each meal is perfectly portioned for lunch or dinner ready in just two minutes. That means real food, real fast.

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lie. Now, let's get back to the dude. I have to tell you this because now you're bringing it up. You fucked your dad. I fucked my dad a couple times. Big old boss. We all did it together. When I was, I was living like my dad actually died and I'm living with my grandma, his mom. And I'm 20. And at the time, I'm 20. So this would have been 93. There is a, it's just such a recession. I'm legitimately applying everywhere in anywhere for a job while I'm in community college. I'm applying at the record stores at whatever. Yeah. And it gets to a point where I go home every day to my grandmother. I'm like, I'm 20.

Oh, and 21. And she's like, I want to know, I'm watching you. I know you're putting time in or whatever. And my grandma's an older Catholic lady. Oh, same. And I'm like, grandma, I really think I'm going to donate sperm. You can't donate sperm. Those are still your children.

And, you know, she's very Catholic and all this. and that's not right and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't care, grandma. I'm going to research it. So I do. I call a couple places. And what I learn immediately is that they will only allow you. They're only supposed to allow you.

Let me say that. Two donations in a certain mile radius because of exactly that. It's not probable, but it's possible that you and a sibling could marry whatever. And now you got all that going on, genetic. Yeah. And however, I say there's only supposed to because I believe we had a young lady on our Patreon come on here who was the, her father was a sperm donor in, I want to say it was San Francisco. I'm wrong a lot. But she did a 23 of me.

And at the time, I want to say it was something like 20 some siblings. Oh, she was one of those. That happened to my friend. And they said they were letting that guy. You know, weekly. Weekly. He's got a good seed. But it's like, then you do have a damn good chance that these people could.

You're going to run into somebody. So you had a friend that had that happened? Yeah. Well, she had just, you had a sperm donor father and she did it and found out she had this whole, like, like, plethora of siblings. And they actually all got together and met him, all from him. They all got together and met him? How did they find out who he was? Can you find out?

I can't. I've tried. I think there's, it's something in like, I don't want to say the registration, but you can either make yourself, like, open to having the contact or close. And I, I, yeah, yeah. And mine is not available. But I also have never had a sibling other than my brother being a half sibling pop up. And when I am in a serious relationship with someone, I go, have you done 23 of me?

And they're like, yeah, I'm like, okay, let me see it. I'm taking that little peek. Make sure we don't have any overlaps. You know, a little fit cousin or something. Or I'll, like, search their name in my, because you can search your relatives. Oh, you can? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, okay, your last name didn't pop up at all.

We're good to go. Like, it's just, it's crazy. And then you wonder, like, if you know your dad's a sperm donor and you're left-handed, then I'm wondering, like, is he in there left-handed jerking in the cock? That's so funny. Yeah. From downtown. And you're a lefty. You don't even know why.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm a squirder. I probably get that from him. From him. Okay, let's go back to Alaska. You're going at eight years old, you leave a Waffle House, and mom is now a single mom with two kids. Yeah. And she's like Alaska. Why Alaska is there a job opportunity there?

Job opportunity. I think she really, it was a small town, and I think she was. What town do you go to? Well, Alaska was Anchorage. That's a bigger, big city for Alaska, but Ocean Springs was a small town. Everybody talks. And I think I have a lot more empathy for her now that I'm. I'm getting close to the age she was when all this happened because I'm like, dude,

she had two kids. She was in the throes of alcoholism. Got sober a few years before we left Mississippi, but it was just struggling and manic and mentally ill. And I think she does she do for work. So she works for the government. Some of my friends are like, I think she's in the CIA. But like, because after I graduated high school, I won't jump ahead again, but she went to a lot

very precarious places for work. Did she continue to do that sort of work in Alaska as well? Well, yeah, so she got a job initially with the fish and wildlife, and that's what moved us up there. They paid to move her. And then after we were there a couple years, she moved over to like the Army Corps of Engineers. And I don't really know what she was doing. I just always like paperwork or something. I don't know. She quit bringing me to take your daughter to work day. I don't have the details. But yeah, she drove us. I think we were in Mississippi for maybe like a year or two, like two years more, two and a half years more. And then got a job and said, moving to Alaska kids, packed us up and drove us out like a day earlier than we said. We were all packed up, so we were supposed

to leave a certain date, and she's like, well, we're packed up, there's just storm coming, let's just hit the road. And I was like, I'm leaving, and we're going to rush. This is crazy. We didn't know this for like, it was a two-week drive from Mississippi to Alaska. And my mom, in my mom's Subaru, fucking cheese chain smoking. Oh, man.

brothers in the back, just listening to his, you know, Walkman. And I'm just spending on the front seat, like, ruining my life. Eating her smoke. Yeah, and she's just hopped up on no-dos doing 14 hours a day. And we found out, so we drove West first because she had a, had a sister in Dallas. So she's like, we'll go see Aunt Chris. Say hi. I haven't seen her in a few years.

See her kids. And then roll up. We got on a ferry boat in Bellingham, Washington. Three days on a ferry boat. She's like, it's like a cruise ship. I'm like, this is a Greyhound bus. Three days. Is it that long? Yeah, three days on a cruise ship.

And I'm like, this is a Greyhound bus on the sea. It's not, it's sad, mom. And she's like, it's an adventure, kids. Drove us through the Alcan Highway up to Anchorage, spins out in the parking lot because she doesn't know how to drive on ice. And I'm like, my life is over. We find out from the landlord of our house that we had left. She called her, you know, she's like, let me know when you make it.

She calls her. So the storm that was coming was a hurricane called Hurricane Jorge, George, whatever. I think they called it Georges. Mississippi people were like, I don't speak Spanish. And it wasn't supposed to be a huge story. It was supposed to be like, you know, category two. It got a little bigger. There was an oak tree in our front yard of the house we rented.

And we left a day early. That night the storm came in, smashed through our house. Did it? smashed through my bedroom. No way. I would have died in the night. I would have been smashed by a tree. Holy shit.

Fucking crazy. Poltergeist. Yeah. That's just like, what in the fucking, my mom's crazy but psychic? I don't know what that is. And I was like, oh, good. Now I have to think I have a bigger purpose or something.

Crazy. But we get to Alaska. And within a week, like we were living in, it was temporary housing, but it was a one-bedroom apartment with two, like, cots and a cat. It was the grossest apartment. And it just, it's freezing.

I hate cold weather. What month are you getting up there? End of September. So winter has come in Alaska. It is. In Alaska, you get nine months of winter. Yeah. They go winter, still winter, still winter.

And then construction, that's the joke. But like, just immediate cold. It didn't snow in southern Mississippi. My memory of winter was Germany. And I'm like, it was a vague memory of me crying. snow and going, I hate this. Within a week, I found out I break out into hives when I get cold.

It was just miserable. And then she met my stepdad. How'd they meet? A.A. Oh. Okay. Yeah. We just go, he's sober.

I remember we're meeting him. He's like, hey there, young lady. I'm Terry. Nice to me. He sticks out of his hand. He's missing a fucking finger. Oh, bro. That's, you got a fist bump me for the first time.

Dude, yeah, you come out of that nub? Let's ease into that. And he goes, I'd like to take your mother on a date. And I go, absolutely not. I was just so mad. I was like, you've got to be kidding. Your first date, Terry? Do you?

Hey, little buddy. And he used to, he would point with that finger. Oh, hell. Oh, hell. Oh, Terry, come on. Dude, he'd give people butter. Remember the bunny ears and photos with his nub? I'm like, stop, Terry.

Yeah. Dude, Terry is such a stepdad name too. It is Terry. Just immediately, I was like, we were five minutes. Terry. He already saw his half finger. Yeah. I'm like, this is it.

This is what we're doing, moving to Alaska and settling down with Terry. So Terry has how many kids? He had two, he has two boys. Are they older than you? Younger. Nathan and Keegan. Nathan was actually exactly nine months to the day younger than me. And then Keegan was five years.

And are you all just like boom instant family pretty quickly? Just crammed together and you could tell everyone was like great. Brand new to everybody. We're not easing into this. Yeah, we're like, okay. And where are you moving from that apartment? Where do you all stay now? So we had moved into a two-bedroom apartment.

And by the time my mom and stepdad started dating. And then my mom very quickly, I realize this now. Like I was like, that's just normal time. It's the same thing, but like at this point, I was in sixth grade. I had left middle school in Mississippi. Sixth grade's in middle school. And all the cool girls were starting to be my friend. And I was like, all right, I'm going to be okay, you know.

Then we moved to Alaska. It's still elementary school. Already, I'm like, I'm above this. The temporary housing's in a different school district than the new housing. So I moved to a different sixth grade. Then she moves in with my stepdad in the same year. So I went to four different sixth grades. Damn.

Yeah. And that's a hard year. That's a hard. That's a hard. That's a tough one. Yeah. And, And by the time she moved into my stepdad's,

stepdad's house, it was his mom's house. I'm like, he's living in this. Was she there? No, she lived. Dude, my grandma was in Australia. My grandma was like, OG internet dating. She would meet men on America online. She's on her eighth husband. This woman doesn't fuck around.

So she was in Australia and basically he's just living in her house. And now in retrospect, I was like, this man was, didn't have his life together. He's living in his mom's house, not paying bills. Like in Alaska. Yeah. But my mom's like, ooh, a house. My mom has like this obsession with houses. I can't get her to stop buying a house when she moves to a new place.

It's like, you're old, rent. You don't need to put all that money into something. It's going to be fine. But there's something about, I think she feels that like this, I haven't achieved success as an adult if I don't own a home. But I think she was just like, he has a house. So we move into this house. Is it a nice house? It actually was.

It was like a cool house and it was in a cul-de-sac that in, I didn't appreciate it enough as a kid, but it backed up into the woods. Oh, I liked that. And, dude, I was a woods kid. Except Alaska woods are fucking legit bear. Yeah, like bear or just murder. Yeah, just a man in the woods with that. I mean, I never ran into one, but surprisingly. Was there murder?

Oh. Really? Oh, dude. While you were there, like you knew. Not in my woods. Mm-hmm. But people got murdered. Dude, I have so many dead friends.

What? Friends. Friends. I... From what? What are they... Is it drugs? Sometimes drugs.

Sometimes. So, when I was a sophomore in high school, a... This, my friend Delaney, who I just met, like, friend of a friend because she was a year younger, went missing. and like to this day I cannot watch like they like organize a search party and we were all like searching through the woods looking for it. Yeah like all of us like went out and like the high school. Yeah just like all her like friends and family and

we didn't know until like her like we ran into like her little sister in the mall going have you seen Delaney and we're like what are you talking about? And to this day like if I watch a murder documentary where they go there a search party starts I like shut down. I like can't. This is it. She was found, not by me. Thank God.

During that search? During it. Eventually. There were several searches. She had been murdered by one of our, like one of her classmates. What? Who like. Was he part of the fucking search party?

I don't remember. Was he in on like that? I don't think so. Oh, fuck. So you, did you know? know this kid too then, classmates? I didn't really know him. You know who he was?

Like when they said his name, you know, of them at least. You know, it's so funny is I'm just realizing this. He was right next to my brother in the yearbook. I'm just remembering this right now because my younger stepbrothers, their last name was Longshore. Yeah, Longshore. And this guy's last name was Ling. And I remember seeing him because they were, I saw him in the like middle school yearbook from the year they were in middle school.

And I didn't go to that school. So I just hadn't met him yet. Were they dating? What was there? He was like in the friend group and had like come over. This is what as far as I know, I'd come over to like sneak her out and like escort her to like a party where everyone's meeting up and stuff.

And it had been like she had called her boyfriend at the time and like, oh, he's here. I'm going to come over. And then like she never came over. And it was like that's when the, you know, what's going on. he had like brutally brutally murdered her stabbed her like Jesus did they say why did they find out why here's what did they get him they got him they did okay and they tried him as an adult oh yeah I didn't think of that he's what's 15 16 yeah but what's crazy is like I have a fuck that when people go

the things you watch video games porn you know horrendous if you watch like crazy dark movies they don't that doesn't affect you they found like a ton of like murder porn like on his I don't even know what that means I just remember hearing murder porn and now I don't know if it's just like date line episodes I don't know if it's daylight episode like in my mind it was porn porn dark web dark web like actual on his computer and then there were a couple girls who like later came forward and was like, oh yeah, he like once showed up in my house and like was aggressively knocking at my window. I was like, let me in type of thing.

That's also quite a young age to be that fucking. Fucked up. Yeah. Fuck. You know what's crazier is years ago. I mean, to act out on it. Yeah, yeah. Usually your serial killer's a little older, stronger and 20s or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, this guy like just went in. And then he just, then did he go back to fucking school while they're, you know what I mean? Like this kid back to normal, so to speak, why everyone's looking for the song I think so. Jesus Christ. And then they, like, brought him in and just he had done it. And years later, I was actually crashing on a couch at a Chicago comedian's place.

I was, like, going through town in Chicago, you know how it is. Fucking early days road dog and $200 bowling alleys being like, I'm living the dream. And MSNBC lockup comes on. And it's the maximum security prison in Alaska. And jokingly, I go, but I know a couple people in there, they cut to this guy. No. Swear to God. Him going, you know, everyone thinks we're monsters.

We're not monsters. And I was like, that guy's a monster. He's a monster. What? And they're talking about it. He's like, he's working on a degree.

And I'm like, I never had this. Like, I would see those shows and go, yeah, see, it's different. And I'm like, oh,

these people are so fucked up. But there's just so much mental illness. I had three friends who were brothers and their mom was a paranoid schizophrenic. She killed all of them. Did she fucking rock to the Eagles, girl?

I think she did. Well, I'm running down the road. I'm killing my kids. Wait. She killed all three and herself too? Nope. No.

Killed all three of them. They were in high school with you too? In high school. What the fuck's going on up there? Yeah. Is this the 24-hour darkness shit? Yes, it makes people crazy. And the saddest part of them is they were about to go live with their grandmother because she was, she was really unwell.

She would like beat them up. Listen, this is three boys. Yeah. They could have took their mom. So how did she do it? She'd do it while they were sleeping or how? Gone with a silencer. Yeah.

So here's what happened. Jesus. One of them, the oldest. one was he had had a surgery, so he was on painkillers. And they, there was, her and her three boys, they lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Mike slept on the couch. And the other two, Joey and Chris, Joey's the youngest. Chris had just graduated high school the year before.

They shared a bedroom. Early in the morning before anyone's up, she goes to Mike on the couch, gets him. Shoots him. Covers them up with blankets. Joey comes out. A silencer for real. Yeah, yeah, which is fucking, I don't know. I don't understand.

What I don't understand is. Wildly premeditated. Wildly. How crazy. This is when I start to question how crazy people are when they're crazy. Like, you did all that? I was like, how did this mentally ill woman get a gun with a silencer? How did she figure out how to go?

Execute it. I mean, it didn't mean it like that, but literally execute her plan by executing her kids. Yeah. Her kids. Her kids. Covers him with blankets. Joey gets up in the morning and goes, come on, Mike, get up. And she's like, Mike's not feeling.

well, he's going to stay home today. And I rant, we saw Joey at school and he said, Mike is pretending to be sick to sneak out. Because his girlfriend, coincidentally, wasn't at school that day. She was also sick. Wait, she didn't shoot all them at once. No. What?

Joey's gone at school. Chris is in bed hop-up on pain killers. So he never pulled to cover down or look or anything to see blood or. She just went, leave him alone. And because she was so mentally ill and violent, it was just kind of like, do whatever she she said? I mean, she'd, like, beat them with golf clubs before. And what happened was they were going to move, they were going to leave state and go live with their grandma because it was not safe.

This like breaks my heart. But they felt bad for her. They didn't want to leave her alone. They're like, she can't take care of herself. So they stayed. And then while Chris is in bed on painkillers, she goes in, does it him. He's not even, you know. Out of it already.

Yeah. And then this is what I was told. So I, you know, now if people dramatize. repeating or I don't remember if I read this or someone repeated this or she waited next to the door when Joey got home he opens the door she's standing behind the door he walks past the door behind his head boom and then she waited an hour for some reason walked across the street to cars which is the grocery store's a safeway that's just the like kind of what the chain's called there and from a payphone called the police and said I just murdered my children and they're

She's like, yeah, I'm just going to go sit at home if you want to come get me. And then walk back and sat there. Just sat there. All three of her kids dead in the house. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And I got a call on my little fucking Nokia cell phone.

You knew all three of these boys. All three of them. We all like what we started. I mean, I had really just become friends with them earlier that year. We'd all hang out. What's crazy is one time we were at their house. You met the mom. No.

She wasn't. Now I'm like, what she's sleeping? But that seems like fucking rolling in the dice. I think she was out for something. reason. We were there like playing cards and like drinking beers. It was one of those like, kill or bad kids sneaking her. And we all started talking about like, oh yeah, my mom's crazy. And they're like, yeah, our mom's like really crazy. And we're, and, you know, I'm going, me too. And then that happens. And I'm like, oh, oh, that's a different kind of crazy.

That is a different kind of crazy. I do remember my mom coming into my room the night that I heard about it because I heard it, I got to call it soccer practice from my friend who put her grandma on the phone because she didn't know how to tell me and they were like here's what happened and then I'm crying it it was soccer tryouts and the coach is like suck it up about that did you know what you were crying about I don't remember he must not have but he's like get it together this is tryouts and I'm like my friends are dead triple homicide yeah family yeah mother kids like that goes against every mother nature goes against everything oh yeah and in court the whole story is her. She is paranoid schizophrenic and she thought that the world was bad. And so I have to get them out of it. I have to save them. I have to get them out of here. And she's, you know, in prison for the rest of her life. My mom comes in. And my mom, like, at this point, I was self-sufficient. After my dad left, it was like, well, I better figure it out. You know what I mean? Lived off ramen for a few years and mom would pop in every once in a while and go like, why is the house dirty, you know, or whatever, you know? But.

She comes in my room to like try to comfort me. I assume. She walks in the room and it just goes, oh, like she breaks down. That was her. And she was like, how could a mother do that? And I was like, are you asking how she did her? Yeah. Do you look at you?

You looking for some tips or who do we? And I'm like, why am I comforting you? It was just fucking crazy. That is horrific. Yeah, it's the darkness up there. It makes people... And other ones too, you knew that got murdered as well? I mean, I had a friend get stabbed over a case of beer. And die?

Yeah. I don't think the guy meant to kill him, but it was this guy, he was a big guy. My friend Nick, someone pulled out a knife on someone else. They're fighting outside of a party drunk. And he goes to stop the guy. Fucking grabs his arms to hold him back. And the guy, knife in this hand, goes behind him, stabs him straight through their chest, right through the heart. Oh, no. Yeah, over a case of, I don't think even it was...

I'm thinking maybe he bled out. He got him right there and it was... I don't even know if it was good beer, man. I was like, what the fuck? And then I had a friend just drowned in a pool. It was crazy. Man, all that in high school. Yeah, and so I, like, had a fucked up.

It took me a long time to realize, like, oh, most people I don't know dead people. And that's why I think that, I mean, that's... I got a fucked up sense of humor. Sometimes my humor's really dark. And I'm like, oh, yeah, no, that checks out. I don't know.

And then, so your escape from Alaska was college. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, get me the fuck out of here. All right. Is mom still up in Alaska? No. So as soon as I went to college, she started getting contract jobs with the government. She went to Iraq, Afghanistan, India.

Then she lived in South Korea for seven years. Damn. Yeah, she was everywhere. And by the way, this fucking chain smoking bitch, when she gets, I mean, I love her. We get along now as well as you can. You just go, okay, I don't have to rely on you. And I accept you for where you are. You accept me for where I am.

I'm not sure what my genetics are now, though. She goes, you wouldn't be funny if I was a better mom, you know? But this, I mean, I watched her house these cigarettes. And she goes, you know, there was a lot of burning of stuff in Afghanistan. And the soldiers are, you know, they're getting, they're able to, like, sue and get, like, money. And I'm like, bitch, don't try to blame. Afghanistan. I saw you house multiple marble reds a day just packed. You'd be like Afghanistan. But she just, she would do these contract jobs. Now she lives in Baltimore. Does she really? Yes.

Working for government? She was. She retired right at the end of last year. I think you got out right in time. They would have cut you. She was at Fort McHenry. She was just doing the budget there for the last two or three years. Star Spangled banner was written. Fort McHenry. We set to do our field trips there every year in elementary school. Oh yeah. My mom. Fold a big flag. Oh yeah, she would, I mean,

she loves being American. She'd be like, I got to go, uh, do the, the flag today. Mm-hmm. It was her big,

Betsy Ross flag and all. Yeah, I know, I have a field trip there every year. Every year we're doing it. That's so funny. When I was in Mississippi, we had a field trip

to Jefferson Davis's plantation. It was a complete, a complete opposite. Uh, uh, thank you for doing this. This is a really great episode. Um,

before we wrap up, though, advice you'd give to 16-year-old Jessica Michelle Singleton. Because where are you now? You're in high school with friends getting murdered and dying. Everyone's dropping like flies. You hate it up there. Driving a forward range or stick shift.

Nice. Just keep going. Just, you know, keep doing. I mean, it's so silly to keep doing what you're doing, but like, you're going to be okay. just like stick to your friends and yeah lean on people lean on your I don't know I mean listen to me that's great because younger me was I'll do it on my own I'll do it on my own it took me a minute to realize you need to fucking reach out you need help you're not doing this on your own yeah I didn't realize that to the last couple years it took me a minute too

minute. Just like, it's like, fine. Like, it's okay to ask for help. Yes. It's okay. Yeah. I can't even imagine how different my career or my life would be if the people who just grow up and they know that that's okay.

I don't think they'll ever, you'll never know what a privilege it is to, to not think you have to do it on your own. That's the other thing too, though. It's a, I, 100% I'm sure it's a trauma response from people like us where we're like, I'll just do it my fucking self. Everyone lets me down. Everyone fucking leaves at a one. off while or whatever.

I can't trust anyone. I'm just going to fuck. If I want it done, I'm just going to do it myself. I can't trust anybody. It takes a while to build trust, to let your ego go and be vulnerable and be like,

hey, can you please help me with this? Yeah, like it's also most people, if they can help, like, I love helping. I love if I can help a friend out.

If I have a piece of info, advice, can I show up and help you with your thing? Like, if I have the time, it feels good to help. I was about to say the same thing. Like, you're not a burden for needing

help. That's right. That'd be it. Call people more. Call your friends. You're going to get old and you're going to, that's going to be like, but when we used to just fucking call. Answer the phone. Please, one more time. Promote anything you'd like. You can see me on dateline. No, I, at JMS. You can see your fucking high school classmates. My entire high school class. Jesus Christ. At JMS comedy. My podcast is, hey idiots. If you like country music normally wild and watch my special hi y'all at punchup. Live slash james. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. You got it. As always, Ryan Sickler on all social media. We'll talk to y'all next week.