The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 373: Charlie Berens | The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler #373 | Full Episode

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

My HoneyDew this week is comedian Charlie Berens! Check out Charlie’s special Neighborly out on YouTube, and his podcast Bellied Up. Charlie joins me this week to Highlight the Lowlights of growing up in Milwaukee, being one of twelve kids, and his career in journalism before pursuing comedy. Charlie shares the time he was arrested while reporting for MTV, a miscommunication that got him let go from KDAF Dallas, and how he once found himself as a naked model for a senior citizen painting group! 🎟️See me live. All tickets at www.ryansickler.com/tour 🎤Check out my new standup special “Live & Alive” streaming on my YouTube now! youtu.be/PMGWVyM2NJo?si=SrhXjgzR1pe6CyYE 👉 Subscribe for more standup and new episodes of The HoneyDew, The Wayback, and more! youtube.com/@rsickler ✅ Subscribe to my Patreon “The HoneyDew with Y’all”! Get The HoneyDew audio and video a day early, ad-free, for just $5/month! Want more? Upgrade to the $8/month premium tier and get everything above plus The Wayback a day early, ad-free, censor-free, and exclusive bonus content you won’t find anywhere else! patreon.com/RyanSickler 📧What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] 👕Get Your Merch👕 www.bonfire.com/store/ryansickler/ 🎧 Listen to my Podcasts 🎧 The HoneyDew - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-honeydew-with-ryan-sickler/id527446250 The Wayback - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wayback-with-ryan-sickler/id1721601479 Patreon - www.patreon.com/ryansickler 📣 Follow Me📣 ▪ Instagram: www.instagram.com/ryansickler/ ▪ TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@ryan.sickler ▪ Facebook: www.facebook.com/RyanSicklerOfficial 🕸️ryansickler.com/ 🍈thehoneydewpodcast.com/ 🦀Subscribe to The CrabFeast Podcast🦀 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Connecticut, come see me at Comics Roadhouse March 13th and 14th. Get your tickets now at Ryan Sickler.com. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Back to the honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the Nightpanst Studios. I am Ryan Sickler. Ryan Sickler.com, Ryan Sickler, on all your social media. Starting this up like I start them all by saying thank you.

Thank you legitimately for supporting anything I do. I don't care what it is. Thank you so much. And if you've got to have more of this show, then I'm telling you right now, there's a lot going on on the Patreon. You've got to have the Patreon. We've got a couple things going on over there. You got the Honey-Doo with you all, which is this show with you all. And as you've seen, if you watch the best of episodes, you guys have the craziest stories on the internet.

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All right. That is the biz. You guys know we do here. We highlight the low lights. I always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers. I am very excited to have this guest on with us today here. First time on the Honeydew, ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Barron's. Welcome to the Honeydew.

Thank you. Thank you for. having me here you got it bro you had a lot of umph in that charley barrens yeah we got to bring energy for yeah that like got me going you got to wake up a little bit keep a cool in here so you don't knot off yeah no not not not anymore i was like a shot and a half of espresso charlie barrens is what that was that's what i'm talking about uh well before we get into your story right there please promote everything and anything you'd like yeah hello i am charley barrens you know that already got new special out on YouTube. It's called Neighborly. Lost and Found Tour, Charlie Barrens.com,

and then got a podcast with my buddy Miles. It's called The Bellied Up Podcast. And yeah, I think that's about, that's good. Yeah. Was that a good promotion? Perfect. Yeah, okay. I'm perfect. I'm worried about, you know, want to make sure it's right. You know, off to a good start. Thanks for having me, by the way. Yeah, thank you for being here. This is Daniel Van Kirk, y'all. Big DBK fans. He's our connection right here. He did this. Now that man's got some stories. He does, dude. He's the best. I can't, don't think I can compete with the DVK level stories. Don't even worry about him. I tell everybody that this isn't, this not trauma's not a competition. You know what I mean? It's just it is, your story is what it is.

Yeah, yeah. So I always ask people before they get here, find out that you're one of 12 kids. Yeah. That's right. One of 12 kids. Where do you fall in that line? So I'm second oldest. Second oldest. And yeah, two of 12. And one of six, if you want to simplify the fraction. But second oldest, which means in the family 12, you're like one of the older ones, you know. Is this all same parents or you split family? Okay. So a whole deal.

No twins, no twins, no. Even later in life, there weren't twins. No. So what's how, how much, is your boy or girl, your sister or brother older than you? My brother. How much older? One year. Okay.

Yeah. And then what's the gap for the youngest all the way down? 17 years. So are you close? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're all close. My mom does a really nice job. She has like a Sunday dinner every week and she'll whoever can come comes.

And you're all there? Well, not all. Yeah, if you can be. Yeah. But does that include you guys married kids, that sort of thing? Yeah. There is a bunch of, there's 10 grandkids. I'm not married myself, but my.

My, a lot of my siblings are and they have kids and all that. So, but yeah, yeah, it's a lot of kids going right now. 12 kids, 10 grandkids. Yeah, I think it's 10. It's a lot. Yeah, it's 10. And I think there might be one on the way. There might not too.

I don't know. But usually there's one on the way. Your parents? Catholic? Yeah. And they just, they just. If it happens, it's happening. Pretty much.

We're not stopping it. They're not. I don't think there was, and if they were, I mean, how many more were they did a bad job. They did a real bad job. Listen, there were 30. We had 12. Yeah.

Where are you from originally? The Milwaukee area. Are you familiar with it? Where are you from originally? I'm from Maryland, Baltimore. All right. So effectively the suburbs of Milwaukee really is it. Yeah.

And same like family home, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, we moved. You mean same family home? Did we move a lot? Yeah. Yeah, no, pretty much halfway through my childhood, we moved into my grandparents' house because my mom, she's one of 11.

So they kind of had their kids move out. And as soon as the last one moved out and then a couple years went by or whatever and we moved in. Is it because you needed a bigger home at this point? I think that was the deal, you know? And also I was doing touch math, I think. And my parents were like, we should get this kid and some Catholic school or something. this? No, it's where you like, you write the number, like, it doesn't make any sense to me. I'm starting to wonder if I hallucinated it. But let's say you take the number three, right? You count the

points on the three. Man, I've never in my life heard of this shit. Oh, dude, on one, it's just a one. It doesn't make sense. Two, it's the top of the zero. Well, it's zero. Well, not really. You go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You'd take the sides of it. Yeah, so I was explaining this to my parents and they're like, okay, this school's not cutting it anymore. So I think I might have been the reason. But that's okay. I actually still do it when I'm adding up a tip. Does it work? I think it works. Everyone else gives the reaction you just gave, which is what, you know, I have found some people out there. I've talked about it before and touch math. Yeah. I never in my fucking life. My daughter's learned all different kinds of math now to her

brother's 11 years older. So he learned what's a common core, I think it was or something like that. I'm like, what? And yesterday, last night, she's like, do you know how to do decimal's dad? I'm like, a little bit. She's like, you know, tens and hundreds. I'm like, that's about as far as I go. So she's showing me. And I'm like, yeah, I'm getting them wrong.

I got two out of four. Yeah. Oh, so she's better than you at it. Way better. I was never, I was always in the gifted and talented classes begging to just not be in the math one. And they were like, it's all or none. I'm like, but I'm good at all the other shit. I'm not good at this.

And like, that's what the one you got to take. So, you know, I'm basic math, tips, adding shit like that. Once you start doing fractions and common denominators and there's A's A's and X's and all, I'm toast. That was a Y one time to the second power. I'm like, well, how are we getting Y up here? Yeah, that's bringing back a little PTSD for me too right there. Don't know any of that.

Yeah. I've started to get a little bit more into it because I, when I was a kid, I was doing like woodworking stuff and I've started doing more of that. In the past few years, I'm realizing I'm not as bad as I always thought I was at math. Or maybe just societally people have gotten worse and worse at math. That's very probably accurate as well. And so now my terrible math is now. What math do you need to be an influencer?

Nothing. No, you just need a good tech guy. Engineers and shit like that. You know what I mean? Those people need to fucking math. Yeah. Yeah. No.

All right. So one at 12 living in Milwaukee. Mm-hmm. And then your parents still together the whole time? Yeah. And still now as well. Still now. Yeah.

They're rocking and rolling. They're enjoying my dad's still working because, you know, of course he is. 12 kids, you're going to keep doing that. He's never stopped working. No. And what's the youngest right now? She's 20. Okay.

No, no, no. She's out. She's out of the house. I'm sure you could stop wording if you wanted to. I don't know. But she's 22, 23, something like that. 22, I think. I'm a good brother.

But you can't, you can't keep it. A lot of numbers. Yeah. And we had as kids like a big, kind of one of those Presbyterian people movers, like one of those secondhand ones. It was a Dodge with a big ass, you know? Big ass hanging off that dodge.

And I remember my dad, we were up north in, like up north is in Wisconsin. It's just what we call everything just north of Green Bayish, But really, it's a state of mind. It could be anywhere. We're up north. We're going to this cabin that we rented. My dad takes a wrong turn.

And he's like, instead of going back the way he came, he takes a shortcut. And that's not a good thing when you're northern Wisconsin. Because he came across a sand pit. Oh, no. So he gets his van stuck in the sandpit.

And now, like the box car children, we're all of you in there. Yeah. And we all have to walk. two miles. Oh, we're not all out there pushing, trying to push it out. Well, we tried. We tried. We didn't have enough, you know, giddy up on us. Even though there, there were, at that point, there were probably nine of us. My mom's pregnant. Yeah. It seemed like mom was always pregnant. Nine years, she spent pregnant. Straight nine years pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know,

she can't lift things much less push, uh, Dodge, 370, whatever van out of the deal. And me and my brother, we tried our best, but, you know, thank all. So now you're just huffing it. So, yeah, then we were all walking back, go get some boards, go back, put them under, give it a heave. You get some boards, you get that in a good way. So we got that going. A well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and hold up over time.

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash honey-dew, free shipping, and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash honey-dew. So then what, I know we got some stories that cover here, what gets you out of Milwaukee, then? Why do you head out? Why do I head out? Why do I leave Milwaukee? I mean, I go on tour, you know. So you started comedy in Milwaukee? Oh, what gets me out way back then?

Yeah, yeah. What may just say? No, no, I went to college at Wisconsin University Wisconsin, and then I got into journalism. So I spent 10 years as a journalist or as a journalist, various forms of it, like doing a YouTube infotement kind of channel, doing like a local news channel called Nightcap in Dallas. and it was like nightcap, a different kind of news. And they were going to blend entertainment and news in there. And then like after two weeks of it or two months maybe, they're like, let's just go back to how we were doing it before.

And then I kind of became like a standard traditional journalist for a little bit. Or I was more like a better way to describe it as I was playing the character of a traditional journalist. Did you want to be a journalist? No, it was always kind of a shadow career, I think. You know, like I wanted to write. I was like writing, but I wanted to be a musician, you know, kind of leading up. But this was a way for me to kind of like John Stewart was popping off then or he, I love the daily show, the Colbert report, that kind of thing. I mean, you young guys don't remember John Stewart on MTV.

No, but I watched the old videos of that. How was he on MTV? He was great. That's why he went on to the Daily Show and like it's not an accident. Like, that guy was good. then, you know, and he was also ahead of his time. He was a show out of New York. I can't remember. I think it got late night access. Okay. So he had his own TV. I think it was on MTV. It was theirs. He had his own like little show. Yeah. He was fucking great. A buddy mine drove up to see it and stuff. Like, yeah, I'm big, I love John Stewart. He's great, man. And then yeah, you see him. I remember in class once we were watching him on Crossfire when he went on Crossfire with Tucker Carlson, whoever the other host was. and was just telling them to their face how bad their show was. And he's intelligent.

He can hold his own. I could go to a cookout and talk shit about politics. He can sit with the fucking politicians and talk intelligently about politics and why you guys are fucking liars. Also, the 9-11 thing for him. Every time he sits back down at that fucking table, there's at least one less person with him. And you got to. Every time. He's the only person out there doing anything about it.

And it's a great, like, how do you argue against it? And yet it's one of those, it's one of those weird issues in the country that's got bipartisan agreement outside of D.C. And in D.C., it's almost bipartisan agreement for how do we not pay this, you know? Well, I also like him because he doesn't count how to either fucking side. Like, he loves Joe Rogan. He's been out there defending Joe Rogan. Like, no, you're wrong about Joe Rogan.

Joe's just a fucking comedian who got huge and he has his own views. about these things. He's a good dude. He's out there saying like, you fucking people over here that don't like him, I'm telling you, he's fine. Now, you fucking people over here that love Trump and stuff, I'm telling you, he's a fucking idiot too. Like, he goes off on every single person. He doesn't fucking care. And he's honest about it. Eat that Wuhan, China fucking thing. Yeah, with him on Colbert. That was hilarious. But if Trump have said that, he's a fucking piece of shit. John Stewart's like, nah, it's in, I was watching it again the other day. It's like eight minutes of him going, it's in the name and completely blames them for it. Of course it's

that. And Colbert and trying to tell, oh, well, are yeah, we're fucking sure. It's in the fucking name. Yeah. He goes off. Like, why are we allergic to just common sense? And why is saying something that's common sense all the sudden triggering for people? That's the annoying thing. And John Stewart, he's almost like, I mean, I don't, he kind of, like a referee or an umpire you know calling calling it as he sees it i guess maybe that's a terrible analogy but like he's true to that he's true to the that's right and true to like he's i've rarely seen him you know he's always defending comedians really and whatever the thing is because comedy is you know it is whatever you want it to be i mean in a lot of ways but now if you're a

journalist or something or you're in the media and that's sort of his Glenn is like looking at how the media is retelling what's happening. He's very good at it. For a professional clown like us, do you be able to dance our dance, then go over there and I've never seen him get swallowed up. I've never seen him get embarrassed. I've never seen him look ignorant or foolish. I've never seen an aha moment.

They got him or any of that. Like he really fucking knows what he's talking about. Yeah. Anyway, we'll shut up. So you get into journalism. and you're a full journalist now, University of Wisconsin? Yeah, University of Wisconsin. And I started there I started working like for MTV, actually.

You did? Yeah, MTV Choose or Lose is what they called it back then. It was MTV News. They had a representative in each state. And so I was covering Wisconsin. And interesting thing that happened there. Kind of one thing that... That was a voting campaign, wasn't it?

It was. It was. And that kind of put me on this, more on this news trajectory because Twitter had just come out or whatever, and you were kind of getting that new media into it. And I was covering the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. And that was, I was covering the protests. And I look back and there's just this wall of police. You know, and they got the gas and those flashbang grenades.

They've been throwing that for a while. They did a dispersal thing. And then I see this wall of police coming at us. I'm with this other report from Boston. Oh, they're walking. They're not holding steady anymore. They're walking. I'm like, so what do we do now?

He's like, now we get arrested. I was like, shit, really? And did you? Yeah. Did they fuck you up too while they were arresting you? Or did they just take it? They didn't fuck me up. I did see some people.

Like, I think one guy, I might have had this on tape, but a horse, like, trampled this guy. Oh, fuck. Just his leg was a flesh wound. You know, got to throw that in there. But, but, yeah, we got arrested. And then, so, you know, that was my first time getting arrested, which was fun. Only.

Okay. I mean, I've, I, yeah, I'd gotten detained temporarily. But that was for an underage drinking ticket. But yeah, no, this was the only time I was full on arrested. And it was, you know, it wasn't, it was like, we were in one of those big chicken coops kind of a thing. And they gave us peanut jelly sandwiches. What kind of jelly? It wasn't the pest.

Was it grape or was it strawberry? Strawberry is my knee jerk reaction. See, I like, I like grape. Yeah, they weren't really taken requests. I'm just curious. I'm just curious. Yeah, strawberry from what I recall. Was it crunchy or creamy cream?

It was creamy. peanut butter. This was a D-minus PB and J sandwich. It's the, it's the intern over there. Who's making the prison peanut butter and jellies, bro?

Whose old prison PBJ, dude? That guy's like, fuck these that's exactly. Why's half of this rye and half white? Yeah. Oh, it's all white. It was all white.

But I was eating that. And I ended up trading half of my sandwich. There was a taxi driver there who was just in his cab. He was just in his cap trying to get across this bridge that these protesters were blocking. And he couldn't. So he just parked there. Well, those police pulled him out of the taxi cab and arrested his ass too. And so he was pissed.

And I, he was hungry because he's a bigger taxi guy. I gave him half my PB&J sandwich. For what? Afterwards, he gave me a ride to Dinky Town. I don't know where Dinky Town is. It's just a neighborhood in Minneapolis, but it sounds way worse. It does sound shady, but I'll tell you what, that's a move right there. He took me to Dinky Town and we got breakfast after.

Really? Yeah. You pay for that. Can't say I remember. I bet you I did. Still touch with this guy? No. Shout out to that taxi driving in Dinky.

Cab is just a few hours together, huh? Few hours. A few more. We were there midnight 6 a.m. Oh, shit, okay. And then he got out and he's like, I'll take it. Where's the cab? It's not impounded?

No, they did. They grab the cab. That's a great question, too. I don't know how. You had to go get that cab. Yeah, which is wild. Maybe the company paid for it. Company probably did that.

Yeah. That's fucking hilarious. It was out there you guys got right in. Yeah. That's pretty nice. Yeah. It was fun, man. And actually, to tie this all back together, my boss there felt so bad that I got arrested.

Also, I think, like, they were, I was supposed to be on the floor of the convention that night. They were kind of texting me like, why aren't you here? Oh, so they're being in a... Where are you? They're kind of pissed. And then I think... Where is your phone just with the locked up wherever they have it? It's in a bag somewhere.

But it's a flip phone. But this is the first time Twitter, how you would use it then. you would text on like 808 you would text boob and uh i don't know if that was the number but i just remembered that that just popped into my brain texting boob and um but you would text a number whatever your tweet was and your tweets like you know so it not much but the last tweet tweet i sent was like on this bridge uh police moving in so then they put two and two together when i just wasn't replying. And she as sort of a way of saying, thank you, or sorry or whatever, took me to see John Stewart, who is performing there. It was awesome. It was super cool.

And they don't talk about his MTV connection? And you're working at MTV? It kind of started it all over there. I know Kurt Loder and all these guys and all that with their MTV news, but John Stewart was on a... Yeah, I can't tell you that. Like, if you put that on like a multiple choice, where did he work before? I might have been able to say that, but I can't say I've seen that. I know we had a show before. I just didn't realize it was MTV.

But yeah, it didn't come up. But yeah, we went to John Stewart and then afterwards, went out to dinner with Sway. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I remember Sway. Sway was there. Okay. That was pretty cool. Because not, you know, we weren't all really hanging out with Sway in that.

that way. Excuse the rhyme, but I got a salmon and I felt bad about getting it because it was like $25, you know? And I do think I finish some of the steak on my producers plate. We're fucking hungry, bro. You had half a PB and J. Half a PB&J. No sleep, half a PB&J. It's a long day. I'm going to eat some of your steak, you know. But yeah, and then it, that experience kind of taught me like how easily it was. is to kind of like maybe suppress a message or something because I had a bunch of footage on my camera. I didn't get that back for two weeks, you know? Really? So they're not sending back property. Like there was no reason. Well, you only got the camera back, you're saying. Did you get

your footage? Um, I don't necessarily, I think all the footage was there. I also think not all of it was there but I can't really say that for certain because what I remember shooting I also had a habit of thinking I was recording when I wasn't but I that horse thing was not on there which which is interesting yeah but the fact that it took two weeks to send back the camera with all the footage I mean that's not that's not the way that's should happen, you know, especially since I'm leaving. I should have my property. They hate cell phones. You know? It's, yeah. Yeah. Everybody's got it now. Right. Yeah. All right. So after college, where do you head? After college, I start working as, well, summer after, didn't have a job in the industry because it's like the recession.

So I was working as a bike mechanic and a pretzel roller at Annie Anz. You roll pretzels in Annie Ann? Oh, yeah. Too good at it? Yeah, you want to see it? Yeah, let me see. That's it, dude, right there. You see that? I watched you roll it long first.

Yeah, you cut it about six inches. You get it going about this right here. Boom. Let me see the twist again. Oh, yeah. Hang on. See that? Do you fucking dream about that shit ever still?

I do. How many pretzels do you think you fucking rolled and made your life? Oh, man. Thousands? You think so many pretzels. And I had a bad habit with memory. And so I would forget which pans were hot and not. And I probably do do some of the recreational activities I was doing as a bike mechanic.

And, yeah, I burnt my hand. I'm surprised I had fingerprints. I would have been 500 pounds. I'd have been eating the fuck out of those pretzels. Oh, yeah. I was always taking them home. That's not one I feel like I would get sick of after a while. Mm-mm.

It takes a while. Even now I pass in the airport. And I'm like, give that a go. Every any ends I pass. You give them tips. Like twisting it wrong, man. You get me to let them know. You know,

there's some of that. And there's also like seeing how much they got stocked up in there and looking out kind of what their dough is looking like. If it's at the right rise or if they're rushing it. I was rushing it all the time. I was rolling hard dough and that made for not a great pretzel. You want to get just fluffy enough to just spill a little outside. I love a soft pretzel.

They're great. It's an art form. Yeah. It's an art form. And not every place does it super good. All right. So you're getting a little odd jobs and then what? A little odd jobs.

And then I start, I go and I work on the film Cedar Rapids. Oh, I remember Cedar Rapids. Great film. What are you doing on that? I'm a PA. Oh, okay. I'm the Waukee PA. How do you get that job?

Well, I got that job through a felon named Ted Noak, who is, I used to play basketball with him and my dad and he was buddies with a guy out here named Jim Burke who is a great producer nice guy he worked with Alexander Payne on a bunch of stuff he worked focus features I believe he was but he he was a good dude so I I booked a ticket to come out to Los Angeles because um I got an interview with Sony to be a PA out there like through my connection at MTV through and then literally on the flight, they canceled it. What, the interview? Yeah. So I was like setting up all these other things and I got a meeting with Jim and

he's a great dude. He taught me a real good lesson and that means like be pleasantly persistent, you know? So I was pleasantly persistent and annoyed the hell out of him for the next few months. And then he got me a gig as a PA on Cedar Rapids. And we'll, and we'll What kind of shit are you doing on Cedar Rapids? Well, I'm getting coffees. I'm sitting there, like echoing the rolling, cut. You know, that's what PAs do a lot. And there was this one time it was a late night shoot.

Everyone was tired. It was John C. Riley's first night on set. And my AD was like, all right, guys, John doesn't have a lot of time. We got to get all this. We're tight on time. Let's just make sure we're paying attention, doing a good job. And I am really not. So they say rolling.

I say rolling. And then they say cue John. John goes around the house. And then they say cut. And I go cut. And each set set up takes like so long to set up that like we don't want to be doing more takes. And it's the it's like the martini shot, the last one of the night.

And everyone's ready to go home and they say rolling, I go rolling. And they go cue John and I go cut. Oh, no. And I ruined the whole scene. And, and yeah, that's one of those moments where they light you up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The director just go off.

The AD. The AD. Yeah. And I deserved. I was not paying attention, you know. But I was tired. I was delirous. But I was doing that, doing that gig.

And they asked me to be the. ass in the uh the uh the the the the bear ass in the locker room scene your stun ass they they they asked they asked they asked if they could use my ass and you know what I did I said do I get an extra little rate for that do I get a little extra deal you have a sag card at that point I mean no I mean you're about to do nudity you should get one that's what I thought that's what I thought but they they they they they I don't know I don't know if that wasn't in the budget or they didn't figure it out but I didn't end up doing the ass thing I'm not sure the reason but and then I got I I I'm now the ass man which it's you know that's what that was my nickname after that was the ass man

because he's a man who knows the value of his ass so and I that yeah they appreciated that you just whore your ass out for anything. I've got some respect. All right. You know. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup

that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. But you also send stuff in said you were a newscaster in Dallas. Yeah, so I was a newscaster.

How do you get to that? Well, what does that mean? You're actually an on-camera anchor? On-camera anchor, yeah. For what in Dallas? Is it KDAF? Is that a major station down there? Yeah, it's the CW station.

Fair enough. That's still a big-ass station. It's a big-ass station. It's the smallest of the market. Yeah, I am, you know, I'm coming in there and I'm like, okay, this is, this is my big break. Did you audition for this? Yeah, I did. I did.

This was, I was doing the, I was doing a thing called one minute news in Greenville, South Carolina, which was a former MTV executive, decided to start up this news station or news deal where he would just bring a bunch of journalists or. aspiring from around the country and a bunch of 20-somethings living together in greenville South Carolina so that was pretty much a party for three months until they ran out of money and then I lingered there for about another year and then went over to uh Dallas KDAF where they won nightcap different kind of news but doing what did you audition and get it right away just go there, start working there, and then work your way up to it? No, no, no. I went, we were doing something in Dallas covering something for the other job, and I met with them there because I forget how I got that interviewer, how I got Connected.

I was looking at other jobs because I wasn't making much money at this one after they. Yeah, can I ask you, so you get this anchor job? What's it pay? Starting 50. And how old are you at the time? 25. I mean, that sounds like a lot of money at 25. Was for me. Yeah, it was for me. And before that, I was making 35, pretty sure. And, but initially, 75. And then after three months of that, they're like 35. Wait, what? Yeah, I got, because there's 75. Yeah. After three months, the company ran out of money. So they fired, not because you were doing a bad job or they're like, hey, we're rethinking this over here.

No, I mean, there was just a recalibration of what you needed to do this. So they laid pretty much 75% of the company off. Everyone else got pretty substantial pay cuts. I see. And then down there, I forgot about this, but I started doing some modeling for some, for a senior citizen. What? Group. I was a body model.

I was. Wait, is it like an art? They're in class. or you, what do you mean? Are you trying clothes on? No, no, no, no. I'm taking my clothes off. You're naked?

Not fully naked. How naked are we talking here? Naked and, well, no, I was just wearing boxers initially. So I actually have one of these drawings of myself that one of the nice senior sizzling gals gave me after. She put her phone number on the back. Did she? Pencil.

Thank you, Claire. and Claire wanted some, bro. And she was like, I thought you'd enjoy this. And she said I put my, I think she said I put my number on the back in case, in case you want me to draw something else. So anyway. Like she's making house calls. Probably.

So what do you, like a senior home when you're doing this? It was a public library. What? I think. Where the fuck? are you sitting in your own greenville south carolina it was like some basement or something some back room i can't really remember exactly where it was the basement of a public live but only senior citizens were allowed or are they just the people that came i think they were the

people that were there i wasn't asking too many questions here are you even getting this gig craigslist dude oh really okay yeah i was somebody like you know what i got a gig for you so yeah i was looking for remodeling jobs and this modeling popped up. You said remodeling? Yeah, just work on something. I mean, I was looking for anything, you know, I was using whatever skills I barely had and trying to monetize them. And this was $75, $75. How long? You're sitting there? I was sitting there three hours. Yeah, $25. And what do you sitting on a stole? Chair? Whatever the pose demanded. And so, and you have to hold that pose for three hours? Well, they do

five minute pose, ten minute, 20 minute. You got to pick that 20 minute carefully. Yeah, but what are you doing with your 20? I'm lounging back, leg up. This is the drawing I have of myself. It's just this. Just package out.

I was going to say, did she put the boxers on you or she got naked for you? She was generous for me. I'm just telling you that. She was very generous. And I I mean, it was cold in that room, but I appreciate it. Then afterwards, the gal who's running the thing says...

How old she? I don't know. I'm having a hard time visualizing. No, she's younger than them, but older than me. Got it. I'm guessing at that point, maybe 40. Okay. Something like that.

And she said, hey, I'm doing this thing. I'm doing a painting, but I need a body model for that. And I want to do Kane from Kane and Abel because after he killed his brother, he's in distress and he's distraught and he's grabbing the ground. I was like, okay, kind of ignoring the information. Like, let's get to the money. And she's like, I need someone to model for that. And I was like, yep, I know. I'm ready to go.

She's like, fully nude. And I was like, how much? you know and she said 25 bucks i was like sold you did it absolutely for 25 25 bucks how much were they going to give you for your ass on cedar rapids they didn't give me nothing all right yes you got 25 you got standing i see again i'm standing my ground you have principal i made money yeah now i could have upped it more but it's only think about the time and only she's getting this picture cedar rapids it's more about the eyes that cdb's 25 bucks per 12 dollars and 50 cents per eye that sees the ass.

Now, where are you going for this? Her home? Oh, we did it after the class. Same place. Same place. So now you're naked in the library. Mm-hmm. And how long you're sitting there for that one?

Oh, I wasn't sitting. I was bent over. What do you mean? That's the person out. I'm wrapping the ground like this. Naked. Ass up, baby. Doing it.

For $25 fucking dollars. $25. dollars. Charlie, when you leave, we got to talk to you about some expired books. You got some check out, late checkout here. Your assholes out at the library. How long are you standing in that position at the library? That wasn't too long.

That was just a few snaps. Is there anybody? So she'll take a picture and then she'll draw it? Okay. All right. So you're not having to hold that one for 20 minutes. No, no, no, thankfully. Was she cute?

I don't, I think she was cute. Do you think she was cute? Hitting on you or was this? No, no, I think she was a legit artist. Okay. I didn't get creepy vibes. And then years later, telling this story my girlfriend, she's like, she's a detective.

She's like, I'm going to find that. Nah. She found it. Wait, hold up. Your girlfriend's a real-life detective? No, she's just a girl. I was going to say, this is every woman out there. I know.

I know. I'm a fucking detective. But so not only is she not a detective, she did find that fucking this is why i don't cheat bro this is a hundred percent wide old cheat it's all out there if you do guess how much it is hold on she found which one the boxers or your your best over and you got paid 25 how much is it being sold i want you guess so price is right charlie's ass edition and it's a religious it's under the religious guys too of the can and ables so praying on that but that's i'm gonna go with a buck 50 150 yeah

More? Five. More than $500? A thousand. Bro. Three G's, baby. Get the fuck out of here. Three thousand dollar ads. I now know my value. That girl gave you $25. Now, did she sell it for that?

Or is this like those eBay users, I'm asking for $10,000. You can still buy it today. Have any prints sold at $3,000? I think it's the original. And in fact, it says one of one in the box. Is that a bad Christmas gift if I get that from my girlfriend? No. Is that a good one?

Dude, it's hilarious that she found that. If you're like, here you go. You better have a backup. Do you want to see it? Yeah, I want to fucking see it. All right. It's actually a good thing. Pretty good, right?

It is a good pain. And she did me, she did me a solid on that side ass. I was not doing that much squats back then. She gave us some good muscle on that side ass. Yeah, isn't that cool? It's a great painting, actually. You thought you were going to see my pecker. I thought we were going to see.

Not only that I think we'd see your dad. dick i thought it would be nowhere near as good as that she's a really actually is a good she's a very talented artist she is a talented artist so i think i'm gonna um buy that i think i'm gonna see if i can get the price down a little bit sure you can get it down when did you do that i did that when i was 20 how old you now two 23 23 22 how old you now 38 bro it's been on sale for 15 years You can definitely talk her. But it's been taking off shelf space. So now she's got to make more money.

She's going to hit you with the pawn stars pitch. Like, I got to sell it. I got to fucking package it up. Do you want it framed? Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's a great gift, though. You don't say anything and just fucking sneak out of bed in the middle of the night or whatever and hang it and then fucking get up.

Just let her see it. I'm going to do that right after this, dude. Let her see it. Yeah, I'm going to do that right after this. Oh, so good. I'm going to reach out. How the fuck. did she find that that that's why i will forever be faithful yeah you better be also i love her

yeah well i mean i would never think that goes without saying let's say of course yeah let's say i did not the only reason i don't cheat of course but i'm saying like there's no point to it no there's no no it's no it's like i mean i grew up catholic the guilt on your soul forget about it and also with a p i man you know we all are so all right so all right so So this I want to get to as well because you sent some things and you grew up Catholic, but divorce is on your list. Yeah, I've been divorced. How long were you married?

Five years. And can we talk about divorce with like, were your parents supportive or are they Catholic to the bone? Like you shouldn't do this. Are you the only one divorced in the family? Like, I'm the only one divorced. Yeah. Only divorced one.

You know, it's just one of them things we kind of, it wasn't a, a, There wasn't the drama or whatever. It was we both kind of knew. Do you do it young? Did you get married young? Not that young, 28, you know? Brain had been fully developed allegedly for two years. So, you know, but I think, you know, for me, I think it was a big part of it was just me being a workaholic, you know, a bit.

And not only that time kind of a way, but also just like you don't. you're not processing things. You're not realizing like if you're, if you're there or whatever. And it just, at the end of day, it just didn't work out. But we're,

we're friends. It's not a big deal. There's nothing there. But the thing about it is like, I'm moving out, right? And I got all my most important life possessions in my car. And I'm park it to move my stuff into this like, where,

Where are we? Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Downtown Milwaukee. And I'm moving into this like condo type thing or like an Airbnb for a month, basically. So I go in, I bring like one thing, like my backpack. And I come back, cars broken into. And they stole nothing.

Do you know how depressing that is, dude? You got all your valuables and your prize. My most value, I'm divorced. I just got divorced. It's fresh. And then I get, I'm moving out of my place. This is a day I'm moving out of the home. All my stuff in there.

They break, they, two windows, they smashed. Two. So they took two looks at my most kids. Yeah. It wasn't. They were like this poor son of a bit. They, yeah. And they fucking didn't take anything.

Yeah, they didn't even take the, the naked drawing that that one woman gave me. Thank God. Come on, man. Thank God. I know. They might have wrote her number down on the back but who does that? They left your shit. So now you just have everything but two broken windows now. Yeah, they don't. Two broken windows. I never heard anybody break it and not take nothing. Nothing. Not nothing. You know what I mean? At least something, a radio, something. Yeah. And usually in Milwaukee, if you're going to get your thing broken into, they're looking for a gun. And I had some guns in there.

And they didn't get that either? I think they just looked at it and they're like, this dude's broke and it's not going to work. But they should have seen that there was blaze orange snow pants there and they should have known to dig deeper. There's a rifle in there somewhere. But it's usually looking for a handgun, not a long gun. You know, tough to conceal that.

So anyways. Still depressing. Still super. I don't care if like someone spooked him away and they ran. They still attempt to break two windows on two different sides of the car. So anyways. I want to jump. Why did you get fired from your newscaster gig?

Well, I was never technically fired. Technically, I was just removed from jobs until I was finally at a job where I. Were you escorted out of the building or how do they tell you? you're not welcome here. It's a lot easier. Because you're on TV. You're on TV. I'm on TV.

So, okay, here's a good example. So visually, hey, that one guy does the news all the time is not here today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they had a few different anchors. So it was nice that no one had too much bargaining power. But I was in short, not great at my job and expanded. I, you know, I had a bit of an accent. and there are certain places like I worked for a place in D.C. for a little bit and I was doing

voiceover stuff there and they were like, yeah, you have too much of an accent. You're not doing voiceovers. So, okay. Well, some of that stuff followed me to my job in Dallas. And I had some slip-ups. You know, I said, like, it's going to be hot out there. Make sure you stay inside and find yourself a bubbler. You know, well, Bubbler in Wisconsin is a device used drink. water in Dallas. It's a device you used to smoke marijuana. So I had a little talking to about that. It does matter where you are. It does matter where you are. Context matters. Geographical location matters. 100% it matters where you're standing right now. It is important. And then on top of that, I was reading the teleprompter and I learned how bad I was at reading

the teleprompter there because I was nervous. And then I screwed it up and I'm in my head. And, you know, it's like when you're starting off in comedy, you're thinking about everything other than your set. And you really got to be in the moment with teleprompter and you got no how to read it. And I'm talking about hard words too. Like if you see the word F-A-U-X, that's not pronounced Fox. But Fox Poise, I think, is something I said live on air because I didn't know. I've never seen faux pa written in print. Oh, wait.

I was wondering what the poise was. I was like, what is he fake? I don't remember how they, I don't even know. Yeah. I don't know how you spell faux pot to this day, but I know that I screwed it up live on air. Oh, that is awesome. Live too, not like that. No, no, no, no.

You can redo that. It's live. And my dad is watching the live stream on that day of all days. And he texts back, you should go work at faux news. Fox News. And I was like, thanks, dad, appreciate that. So, yeah, I had some screw-ups, man. I just, you know, in retrospect, I blamed it a lot on my accent, you know, in sort of my comedy stuff, because that was part of it.

But I heightened that as the reason, my creative license. But really, I just wasn't a great performer. And that's what an anchor needs. You got to be, like, a performer more than anything else. like morning news and stuff like that it blows me away how those people are oh yeah also 5 a m it's brutal they're fucking up they're up they look their best for camera they're energetic and i'm like how the fuck do you people every day you're doing this oh man it's brutal especially the morning shows i did a few talking about fuck i did a few morning shows and that just you you really have to

recalibrate why you want to do this thing because you are miserable all the time Just our body's not really meant to do that, you know. Just be up at 2 a.m. and in bed by 8 p.m. at best. Starting your day at 2 a.m. is a while. Yeah. No. To get eight hours of sleep, you've got to be sleeping by 6 o'clock. Yeah.

That's right. Body. I did it for months and I could never get on that system. Oh, fuck that. No. Yeah. I worked graveyard shift too and I worked at UPS. Shout out the UPS Baltimore.

I'm wondering you having it. And anytime I go in, I'm working. I'm up all day. I'm going to college. I'm doing it. So when I get to work and now it's after midnight, I be talking to the dudes. I'm like, what did you do today? And they're like, you mean yesterday?

And it was like in their heads. It doesn't fucking matter. Bro, midnight, the clock change. And it's a whole new day. I don't care if you've been up since 8 a.m. this morning. It is now 1 a.m. tomorrow. And you ask them what you did today because I'm still awake. And they're like, what you mean?

I've been to work for an hour. I'm like, I can't take you, my father. But that was their life. That was their schedule. And they're like, what do you mean? Yeah, no, time does a weird thing on you. And then you get to the weekend and that's forget that. You're just trying to get back to normal.

And by the time you are, you're going back to work. So has your family, all of them come to see you live? Have they all seen you do comedy? I think they've all come. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they've pretty sure they've all been there. other entertainers in the family any other uh or artists my brother is um a comic he runs a lot of shows

in milwaukee okay he does a good job people like doing his shows because you know he pays good and um and he's just real comic friendly guy you know i don't know how much he can make off that because he's just so not good to the comics but his shows are great uh they're always fun comics really like going on them but he does a great job there and And then, yeah, I got, you know, a lot of the rest of them are teachers, my brother's a lawyer, realtor, nurses, you know, anesthesiologist. Damn, you got it all different one. Well, yeah, there's 12.

I mean, yeah, no one does the same thing. That's what I'm saying. Not like five of them do the family business or any of that shit, huh? No, no. I mean, my sister does some work for me. My brother does some work for me. My mom does some, my mom does all our merch. Is that right?

Kind of fun. Yeah. She's real good at it too. Just like, you know, and responsive to people. And yeah. So it's fun. It's fun. But yeah, no one else is doing it like touring or whatever yet.

So we'll see. You never know, too, who's going to drop their current career and just find something else. You know, I was just doing the journalism thing for, 10 years. Yeah, and your fucking age ranges span so long. 20? You said your sister's 20. Yeah. And your brother's 12. 35. He's about turned 40. Damn. So, yeah. So my sister must be 22 now. Yeah, 39 to 22 right now. Thank you for doing this, dude. Hey, thank you. This was fun. Before I let you go, I'm going to ask advice you give to your 16-year-old self and then you can promote one more time. 16 year old so what would you say to 16 year old charlie i would i would just say to like

believe that you can do the thing that you want to do because and at the same time it's kind of like maybe not believing it is it got there anyway but sometimes i wonder what if i believed it You know, did you not believe it so much at first? No, not at all. That's why I did the journalism thing because I was like, well, in the Midwest, you're straight practical. That's a little different then. So you weren't like, I know this is going to be it. So I'm just making money to do this.

You were not sure it was going to be it. Pretty sure it wasn't going to be it. Yeah. But sure you knew you needed to go do it. Yeah, that I just, it was stay somewhat in the realm and then you'll find your opening. But if I, I think, believed in myself a little bit more. Um, yeah, just, just kind of go for it. But I don't have regrets.

That's great advice, you know. Um, thank you. Dude, thank you. You got it. Super fun. Before we go right there, one more time, promote everything you like. All right. YouTube got a new special out neighborly and, uh, Charlie Barrens.com.

I'm going on tour around the country. And, uh, yeah. And then bellied up podcast. So just look bellied up, like bellied up to the bar. So there you got it. Perfect. Dude, thank you, man. Watch is special.

And as always, thank you guys for your support. We'll talk to you all next week.