The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 384: Jackie Kashian on Losing Her Mom at 8 & Growing Up Fast | The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler #384

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

SPONSOR Ridge - Upgrade your wallet today! Get 10% Off @‌Ridge with code HONEYDEW at https://www.Ridge.com/HONEYDEW #Ridgepod Comedian Jackie Kashian joins me this week on The HoneyDew to Highlight the Lowlights of her upbringing in South Milwaukee. From hitchhiking to the pool at 5 years old to growing up in a house with 5 siblings and young parents, Jackie shares stories that are as unbelievable as they are real. We get into her parents meeting at 15 & 17, her father leaving the family, and the lasting impact of losing her mother at just 8 years old. Jackie also opens up about wetting the bed late into childhood, a principal offering to adopt her brother (and not the rest of the kids), and how her stepmother Nancy helped stabilize everything. Check out Jackie Kashian’s special “Alter Kashian” and listen to her podcast “The Dork Forest” 🎟️See me live. All tickets at www.ryansickler.com/tour 🎤Check out my new standup special “Live & Alive” streaming on my YouTube now! http://youtu.be/PMGWVyM2NJo?si=SrhXjgzR1pe6CyYE 👉 Subscribe for more standup and new episodes of The HoneyDew, The Wayback, and more! http://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! http://patreon.com/RyanSickler 📧What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] 👕Get Your Merch👕 http://www.bonfire.com/store/ryansickler/ 🎧 Listen to my Podcasts 🎧 The HoneyDew - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-honeydew-with-ryan-sickler/id527446250 The Wayback - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wayback-with-ryan-sickler/id1721601479 Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/ryansickler 📣 Follow Me📣 ▪ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ryansickler/ ▪ TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@ryan.sickler ▪ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RyanSicklerOfficial 🕸️ryansickler.com/ 🍈thehoneydewpodcast.com/ 🦀Subscribe to The CrabFeast Podcast🦀 http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Boston, I'm fired up to head back your way. I'll be there Friday, May 15th, and Saturday, May 16th. Albuquerque, New Mexico, I'll be there Friday, June 5th, and Saturday, June 6th. Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'll be there Friday, June 19th, and Saturday, June 20th. All tickets on my website at Ryan Sickler.com. Hey, guys, we have a new segment on the way back called After the Beep. We got a new landline and an old school answer machine and we want to hear from you call 323452-3732 and leave a message hit us with things like craziest high school moment worst job dumbest injury worse trouble maybe something you got away with or

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Thank you for supporting anything I do. And if you love this show and you have to have more, then you have to have the Patreon. It's the honeydew with y'all. And you all have the craziest stories you'll ever hear in your life. We are well over 300 episodes on that Patreon show now. And for five bucks a month, you're getting hundreds of the craziest stories you'll ever hear. in your life. It's been five bucks since day one, and we will not change it. What we do want is if you or someone you know has a great story that has to be heard, please submit it to Honeydew Podcast

at gmail.com. If you send it before, send it again. I don't care if you're a member. I don't care if it's your story. If it's one of your parents, whatever, we want the best stories out there. All right? That's the biz. You guys know what 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 with us here. First time on the honeydew, ladies and gentlemen, Jackie Cation. Welcome to the honeydew, Jackie Cation. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. It's been a minute since I've seen you, young lady. I know. You recognize me on the street. Everybody recognizes you. There's no reason not to. I'm also a student of the game and you're a fucking pro. You're a vet.

You've been in this game and this business quite a long time. In for the duration. You're a killer. Thank you. much. I got the new album, the new special out. Yeah, tell us everything. It's, uh, that I'm doing everybody's podcast. I've never done this one. I can't believe I've never done your podcast. Me either, because you did the crab feast. Right. I don't think you, have you ever done the Dork Forest? I have not done your Dork Forest. Dork Forest. 20 years. This is the 20th year doing the,

20 years. 20 years are doing the Dork Forest. That's it. Dorkforest.com or the Dorkforrest.com If you enjoy a determiner. Anyway, uh, the, uh, yeah, I got some, I got some pedants. You've got a special on an album out now. We're a special on an album out. And it is called altercation. And it is called that because I was going to call the last one altercation. It came out, I guess it would have been 21. But we had just stayed home for 16 months.

And so that one was called staycation. Because my last name was Cation. And we were around. I got you. And so now I've decided to do a trilogy. And so this one's called Altercation. because my last application and I want to punch everyone in the nose. So the next one, the third one, we don't know what it would be called.

Could be abdication if I choose to run. Could be vindication if everyone I dislike right now slips on a banana peel and we roll them into the sea. And social media, where can they find you? It's Jackiecation.com is the website. It's at Jackiecation on everything. And jackycation.com, if you don't know how to spell jackycation.com, go to family. Family Pet Ancestry.com, which points you to Jackie Cacheon. What do you mean?

Do you know why I bought family pet? Oh, you actually did do it. Okay. Because it's funny. I like the idea of- You bought family petvacation.com? No, no, family pet ancestry. Oh, ancestry.

Dot com. And that just redirects you right to Jackie Cache. 15 years ago, I've had it. Or 10 years ago, I can't even remember how long I'm at it. Which one do you get more traffic from? I don't know. I don't look into it. It's, but I like the idea of someone just going,

did my cat come over on the? Mayflower. Family pet ancestors. Can they? Oh, you can get DNA of your dogs. You can't, right? Yeah. But you weren't, you weren't getting it when I bought family pet ancestry.com. No one has offered to buy family pet ancestors.

I was my next question. I assume one day they will or they'll get over it, right? I mean, is my dog eligible to join the dogs of the American Revolution? So, uh, family pet ancestry.com points to Jackie Cajer.com. All right. And it's all there. All both of my podcasts. All of the merch you could ever want.

My garage is full of old CDs and DVDs. So if you could either have a collection of five mismatched coasters, if you don't own those machines, or if you own those machines, you can get what you like to call hard copies. Yeah. And live it up. Live it up with a hard copy of a CD or a DVD.

My brother just, he's like, hey, I just found these VHS in my house. I'm like, send them out here. They could be stuff we could use for the way. back or whatever. He's like, I don't know what's on them. I said, well, do they look like they are playable? He goes, yeah. I said, I'll buy a VCR. There you go. Did you find one? Yeah. All right. You'd think, you'd think a VCR would be affordable because they're, because it's $25 years. It was $300 for a V8 VCR, which is, which is how much they were when they first came out.

You would think they'd be 40 bucks or you could get one in Ralph's in the checkout line. Right. But they're just there. Now you can't find it. $300. It cost me to get it. I hooked it up on the TV. I got it working. Oh, good. And then the tapes were nothing.

It was all like old shit. He was recording from TV. Let's get into your life, Jackie Cation. Where are you from originally? Tell us about your parents. I was born and raised in a little factory town outside of Milwaukee called South Milwaukee. Okay. It is east of the city.

We're not a bright people. And it is a factory town, right? The factory that currently that bought the original factory is John Deere. Oh. And or Caterpillar. One of those two. I think it's Caterpillar. A massive name.

Yeah, yeah. So Bessiris was the name of the guy Bessiris, and it was started on Lake Erie. But South Borgh is right on Lake Michigan. And so it's a little factory. It's got 22,000 people in it. It's always had 22,000 people in it. I used to think it was a really small town. But I think that's just because I was doing laps looking for an exit.

And it turns out it's a bigger town. Like some people come from towns that have like 500 people or 750 people or 2,000 people. You got more than that factory. We got, yeah, we got some towns. It used to be one of those sundown towns where black people couldn't live there. They could work in the factory, but they had to leave by sundown. Is that right? That's a real time.

What year are we talking about? Oh, that was 72. 70s? Yeah, 76. And they just have to get the fuck out and go wherever they, lived. Yep. It was, yeah, it was, those, those towns are called sundown towns. I didn't know that. Sundowners? I think it's like that. And, uh, now pretty well integrated, not, almost gentrified, like my childhood liquor store, huh, is now, is now an ice cream shop. There you go. That's it, right? Trying to help the community. That's it. And right next to my

childhood liquor store was a childhood gun shop. It's alcoholism or just over diabetes. And so it was It was ice cream. It was alcohol gun back in the day. Yeah, yeah. It was owned by the same, same guy. It was a gun shop next to the liquor store. And now the gun shop is actually, the old gun shop is a, which for a long time was like a Catholic bookstore or whatever, is now a coffee show. So gentrification is coming, is what I'm saying.

Not that you can't still get a gun and some liquor, you got to go across the street to the bait store. Yeah, yeah. That's all. Bate and tackle? Bait and tackle right there. Okay. What, are you in that town? because dad, mom work at the factory?

Like, why is that where they're from? Why are we there? That's where my grandparents moved there when they immigrated. So what is Kaysian? What is that? Armenian. Yeah. So they moved there.

And then my dad was born, a little anchor baby and L.A. Cation. And that town grew up around him, you know. He tells a story about how there was one of his buddies from grade school had a trap. line, a winter trap line where he would catch rabbits. That's how they legit ate and stuff. To eat. And I don't know what he did with the rabbit fur, but legit, yeah, like food. Yeah.

And I don't know. Anybody sat here and knew a trapper. I don't mean neither. My dad talks about it. He was like he had to do it before school too. So at like four in the morning, he would walk the trap line and pull the rabbits and reset the traps, drop them all off at home, and then go to school. Go learn math.

Right. And not my father, though. My father, an only child, a prince. And a late baby to my grandmother. So, beloved and spoiled beyond belief. God. And he's better now since he almost died about a dozen years ago. You remember Georgia at hire, not Georgia O'Keefe.

Of course. Not Georgia O'Keefe. Oh. Not even Georgia O'Keefe. Neither of those two. The vagina of pain. Right, right. Who wrote A Good Man is Hard to Find?

That author. She was great. Anyway, A Good Man is Hard to Find is the short story I'm thinking of. And it was about this terrible family who gets killed by these two guys who escaped from prison, one of whom is a psychopath and a murderer. And the other one is just a murderer, not a psychopath. and just a murderer or not a psychopath says, kill the grandmother first.

She's the most irritating. And the psychopath says, she wasn't that bad. She'd have been okay if there'd have been someone there to kill her every day of her life. And I think about that sometimes with some people. Some people be all right if there was someone to tell us, every single day, just kill you.

I will kill you if you do not act like a normal human being. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, so, yeah. And what's mom do? What's mom doing? Well, my mom's dead. So, I mean, at the time. Right, right. So here's, my parents had what could only be referred to as a 1950s romance, right? He was 17. She was 15. She got pregnant. They got married. Oh, wow. Babies. They're babies. He joined the babies having babies, and he joined the Navy. Okay. And he did not know how. she didn't know they had six kids.

It was the only thing they were good at. Six kids. And the first one comes at 17 and 15? Yeah. Or 16 and 18. Yeah. And then you continue to have five more? Right.

She had me when I was, she had me when she was 26. In 10 years. Where are you? I'm the youngest. You are. Yeah. So pretty sweet.

sweet spot. Though isn't the sweet spot, you wonder about it because those first five years, my mother pretty much kept it together alone, because my dad was in the Navy. She had three boys. Boys, too. I mean. Three boys in a row. And she's just running her ass off trying to figure out how to be a wife and a mother. And my dad is like, here's some money. I got to go. Here's some money. I got to go. Very 50s dad kind of thing, right? Except for that he's 18. He's 20, you know? Guys, I recently used TaskRabbit for two things. I got an invert chair where I hang upside down and stretch my back and it feels amazing.

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Taskers book up fast, especially for same-day tasks. So book Trust at Home Help Today. That's $15 off your first task using promo code honeydew with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. And are your parents Catholic? She was Irish Catholic and my dad's Armenian. So we're not using contraception and we're not believing anything else. My sister, hilariously, because it goes four boys, then my sister, than myself. And my sister has always said, you know the condom was invented in the 1700s.

And she said that people have said to her, but then you wouldn't have been born. And she's like, I would have been born. I would have been born a Rockefeller like I was supposed to have been born. Yeah, it's been someone else's. So, yeah. But they weren't, you know, there was just so, everybody, you know, you go through life and you can be mad. Like my father remarried almost immediately when, because he left when I was about three or four years old. And what, I'm sorry, what's the age gap between you and the oldest 10?

10 years. Yeah. So my oldest brother is 10 years older than me. And so he was 14. So he was 13 or 14 when my dad, when they separated, my parents separated. And I was three or four years old. And he, he left because my mother was incredible. Like she had lost her shit.

She was violent. She was drunk. She was done. You know, when he left, she was probably 29. Okay. So he was 30-ish, 31. And, and he left. And so he didn't all.

So he couldn't come back to our small town because he wouldn't give her child support because she spent it all on booze. And he'd ever checked. He would just give her all the money. And so she would constantly be like, she wouldn't, for a couple of years, she didn't do laundry. Years. Yeah. So we would take off her dirty clothes.

She would throw them in a closet. She would go buy us new clothes. Ah. So when after she passed away, closets full of rotting clothes. Rodding. Rodding. Okay, let's talk about mom passing away.

So your how old when she passes away? I just turned eight. I was seven, eight. Okay. So she's 33. 17. 17. He's 17.

I'm seven. And they had a relationship with her. Yeah, he had a relationship with her, except for he was 13, 14 when she left. And there was three or four years. where it was just chaos, right? There was. So did dad come back then? He came back.

Okay. And she died horribly. She had a, it was a drug driving accident where she was with her boyfriend Harold. And they were on a motorcycle and they flipped off an overpass and got run over by people. No. Yes. And they were drunk. I see these videos online.

I'm sure back then no helmet either. No helmets. It was no helmet law. Oh, fuck. Mm-hmm. And they go. Harold lived. No.

Yeah. Jackie. I know. Broke two legs and an arm. That's it? Mm-hmm. For going off an overpass. And getting run over by cars.

Are they the drunk ones? Yep. And they get fly to the bottom and then they get... Of a highway and then they get run over. And so do you... I'm sorry to ask. Do you know if your mom was alive when... I don't.

Or is the car the thing that ran her over the thing that killed? Don't know. Don't know. She could hit her head or anything. Right. Hopefully I... Hopefully she would pass out. If there's any God, I hope to God she was done.

Okay. So mom and dad are split at the time then? Yeah, they're split. Okay. And she's got a boyfriend right away. Harold. Right. Well, not, I don't know if they both did right away, but my dad was living with my stepmother.

Okay. And my mother had Harold. And they were talking about possibly moving in together from what I've heard. And, you know, the joke I've done about it, I think it's unmistaking. album is that it was a, at least it was a Harley Davidson. Because imagine the neighbors if it had been a Kawasaki. We're from Milwaukee. Anyway, so, a little dark, but that's, and she was.

The Milwaukee vibrator, yeah. That's it. And she was 33, the age of Christ. Coincidence? Yes. Big coincidence. So, but she, yeah, so she was, so then my dad came back into our lives. And well who's watching you then prior to that yeah it was well my step we'll sort of checking in on you sort of

well here's okay so we lived so my parents lived at this one house right up the block from my grandmother okay and my grandmother's still in my grandfather's past when I'm like three years old so at four that's when my dad that's when that's when my dad separated I bet you that's what sort of gave them the permission to do it Because his dad, because what I heard is that my grandmother was like, from what I heard, both of my grandmothers, my mom's mom and my dad's mom both wanted my mother to have an abortion. Oh. Which was illegal, but they would have figured it out. And my grandfather, my dad's dad, was like, no.

No, we're going to, you're going to, I don't know why he had to say at all, of course, because my 17-year-old mother was like, I guess, all right, I guess I'll just be over here, moo breeding. And so, but my grandmother lived down the block. So when my dad left, we got evicted from that house. And so we ended up sort of listing around that town. And we ended up on sort of the main drag next to the big water tower in an apartment that had two bedrooms. There were six kids. My sister and I shared a bed in the dining room.

A bed. Yeah. I wet the bed until I was eight. My sister, to this day, sleeps on the edge of the mattress. Oh, boy. Both my brothers went to bed way too long, too. Way too long. And I'm like, yeah, you get your own damn bed, bro.

That's it. And I was talking, I told that it started my nephew's one. So one of my brothers was like, I can't believe you just admitted to my nephew, my sons that you wet the bed until you were eight. I was like, what do I care? I don't wet the bed down. I'm looking forward to it in my 70s and 80s, I guess. I got it together.

But it's not, it wasn't my fault I wet the bed, you know? There's a lot going on. A lot of shit going down. It's hardly anyone's fault. And Nancy Kish and my stepmother, who was a great loss to the Austrian army. Holy smokes, my dad, he picked an amazing woman. She was 26. And so my dad would have been, I guess, 36, 35.

She was 26. He would have been 35. And she was our stepmother. And she came in thinking to be essentially Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins. She had a very Julie Andrews fixation. And she fixed our lives. My grandmother was like, she saved your lives. She did.

Okay. So she was a good one. She was amazing, but she was also, she was trapped. She set herself up for this thing. And she didn't want kids of her own or did they have some? She never did want kids. She used to always say that. She was like, I don't want kids.

I never wanted kids. But we're doing this now is what she'd say. And one day we will all love each other and we won't know why. And because she was, I genuinely think I got my sense of humor from her. I got my timing from my dad. But my sense of humor I got from Nancy. Okay. And Nancy Kishen, she came into our lives.

My brother Phil always said, you know, I would have mourned mom a lot more, except for the day after mom died, there was peanut butter and bread in the fridge. You know, he was 15. Yeah. He had a hollow leg. You know? Yeah. He's eating nonstop and everything. Yeah.

It's nonstop boy energy at 15. Mm-hmm. You're constantly starving. He didn't have any underwear. When he was 13, when he went to, you know, when you go to gym class, he used to get beat up because he didn't have any underwear. So we went to Kmart and he stole a package of underwear and he went into the changing room, put all six pairs on, walked out. And Kmart was like, they're yours now. Yeah.

Yeah. Congratulations. Proud owner. But every picture of me from when I'm a little kid, and there's only like three or four, I'm either wearing like a ball guy. or a pillowcase. I mean, it was, you know, my mother was a mess. I genuinely picture her in a heaven where there are no children, where she just looks down on us and go, look, it all worked out.

What do you remember? I know you're eight, you said. I was, yeah, seven. What do you remember about mom? I have only a couple of memories. I remember her, she chipped my front tooth by hitting me so hard, I slammed into the radiator. Damn. Right.

And it was a girl as an adult tooth. I just got a fixed. Just now? Well, I got it fixed and then I got it correctly fixed about a year ago. And I'm 100. So one of my first memory is me sitting at a pile of dirty laundry in the attic when I was like two or three. And then I remember when I was when I was four and five, we lived in this dumb, this dumb two-bedroom of a apartment. apartment where my mom had one room.

My brother Russ and Scott shared a room. Darla and I shared a bed. And my brother Phil was in, what I swear to God, was like a pantry where there was just a mattress in there. And my brother, Terry, my oldest brother, was on a two-season porch in Wisconsin. What's a two-season porch? It's not, there's no windows. What are you out there in spring and summer only?

Is that the two seasons? And winter. He's outside? He's outside. In the snow. That's Wisconsin, man. That's Florida. No.

And it's 1973. You know? And so, yeah. So what I remember is I remember that my mom would send me to my childhood liquor store to pick up cigarettes and beer. And they knew who I was. She had a credit line. And I would just bring him back and she would live it up. I remember going to the bar with her once

and spinning on one of the bar stools. I was drinking a Shirley Temple. She was playing pool and hitting on some guy. I remember that. That's like a memory. I have a lot of memories of her. And I don't have any memories of her being nice to me. I don't have any memories of her being,

I mean, besides the one time when she smacked me, but I don't have any memories of her being that mean to me either. I think I was the youngest, six. It's real. Because all of my siblings were old enough to go to my grandma's house for food. And my brother Phil would make us butter, he'd make butter noodles. And I would, to this day, not my favorite meal. Because he, but he, like, they all, they all sort of Voltroned into one tiny adult and

raised me, right? So, like, my sister would be like, we're going to school. she'd wake up all my brothers and she was only a year and a half older than me, right? So she was six. And I just, you know, and I remember kind of walking around with her a bunch. I hit you, there was a public pool. And if you didn't bring a towel or flip-flops

or any sort of you could get in for free. Otherwise, you needed a dime. High was raised in the Appalachians of the 30s. And so you needed a dime to get like to get a locker. Yeah, yeah. And so I remember walking there once, but I had walked, it was 90 degrees, right, or 95 degrees. And my feet were covered in tar because the, the, the, the, the asphalt. Yeah, the asphalt was too hot.

And so they wouldn't let me in because my feet were too dirty. They were, they were like, and I was like, no, I'll run, shower. And so, but the, but I hitchhiked one time. when I was five to because I didn't want to walk to the pool. And one of my brother Terry's friends, my oldest brother, picked me up. But he was like, I'm five or six. That's insane. Right.

And the town's not that big. So it was just a mile. But he was like, aren't you Terry Cation's little sister? And I said, yeah. He said, I will give you a ride. But do not do this. And I'm like, well, that's the word. There's the weirdest mix message in the world.

Never do this again. It's successful, though. Yeah, yeah, you're lucky, yeah, yeah. You're not walking. So, yeah, and so, you know, Nancy came into our lives, and she was like, you're going to do homework. You're going to structure. It was so much structure that some of it was super pejorative

because there had been no structure that it appeared pejorative and then it was pejorative. Like you, we were, we all had to have dinner together, even if my dad didn't show up. Because my dad, he's working the room. He's always working the room. I used to be someone who didn't put much thought into my outfit ahead of time. But lately, I've caught myself trying to be more intentional in the way I dress. I used to think looking professional meant uncomfortable, stiff clothes that you can't get out of quick enough by the end of the day.

But thanks to the pieces I've gotten from Quince, I know that's not the only way. If your wardrobe needs it, Quince has it. Everything from blazers and cashmere sweaters to lightweight linens. They even have pants that hit the same balance of relax and comfortable, but put together enough to keep me looking polished. Another huge hit for me has been the bamboo lounge teas. It's almost impossible to describe how soft the materials while still staying lightweight and breathable. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman,

so you're getting premium materials without the markup. refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash honeydew for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash honeydew for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash honeydew. He still do a joke about how my dad, because this is true, he had an affair on Nancy. Nine years.

No. We love Nancy, though. Right, we love Nancy. Grandma loved her. Grandma loved her. And by the way, is that dad's mom or mom's mom? Dad's mom. And, yeah.

He cheated on her. Cheated on her for nine years. Wait, the whole nine years? No, no. That was what he said when she confronted them. Not nine years in a row. You know what that is? That's funny.

Still a dick. Still a dick, turns out. You've been cheating on me for nine years. a row. Not in a row. All right, you piece of shit. Jack! I do see where you get. I do see where you get.

And Nancy stayed. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's on her, right? That's on her, but also, maybe she really loved you guys. No, no. No, I think she really loved him. He said no. Right. Well, she did.

She always said, because when they finally did get divorced, because they did after 25 years, and then they continue to live together like lesbians. Did they really? Isn't it to blow you away when people do that? Yeah, because both of their moms lived with them. Yeah. And then both of them. Yeah.

Nancy took care of both of their mothers. Nancy's a soldier. Nancy. Five kids? Is that what it's six kids and two in-laws? And two moms. But one's hers though. One's hers.

One's granny. Granny puts. And because Nancy's main name is Puts, P-U-T-Z, Italian, Polish. and then, but like Nancy had some of the greatest, some of the greatest, like she was like, wash, wipe, and put away. There was a chart with our chores, right? So the chores were, you know, broken up into who washed dishes, who dried dishes. The person who washed had to sweep, the person who dried,

had to wipe everything down at the table and take out the garbage. And if you drop the ball on any of these tax, masks. 5.30 dinner. If you had to be home by five, so you could wash up, help set the table. And for every minute you were late, you were grounded a day. Damn. Right.

And is she sticking to this, too? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was brutal. And she, and her, my sister never got along. Though Darla, she understood the qualities of Nancy, even more now that she has kids. But it was, Nancy just liked my dad so much. And you're like, wow, you need Al-Anon like somebody's grandmother, man.

And but she was, she had, you know, she would read to us. She made breakfast every morning before we went to school. Mondays and Wednesdays were egg days, Tuesdays and Thursdays were pancake days. It was like that. It was structured like hell. You remember it. That's how. He was not a good cook.

She didn't like doing it. She wasn't good at it. I didn't have a decent pancake until after college, because I wouldn't even eat pancakes in college. I was like, I hate pancakes. They're hard to fuck up, too. They're so hard to fuck up. They were too dry on Tuesdays and too wet on Thursdays. Nancy's trying, man.

The only thing she was good at cooking was she had a couple of things that her grandmother made. But I recently found. No, no, that she could, that she brought from. I see. And I will say this is I've recently found out. My brother Russ told me that Nancy had to raise her youngest siblings. Because her mother got a job with one of the U.S. Congress people. Her dad died when she was like 12, Nancy's dad. And then her mom got a job. So when Nancy was like 18, 17 or 18, she still had two younger siblings. And her mom got a job in D.C. with the U.S. congressman.

And her mom was like, I'm leaving. And left Nancy to raise her two younger siblings. This is why Nancy never wanted kids. Well, and that's why Nancy never wanted kids. And Nancy was just, I mean, you just look at it and you go, thank God you were there. I mean, she genuinely saved our lives and changed our lives. But I just, you know, Nancy's passed away too. And I picture her in heaven where the best version of the best version of,

of my father. Yeah. Because my father, she really deserves the best version of my dad. And my dad had a big scare about a dozen years ago where he had like open heart surgery and three surgeries. They fucked it up. They had to open him up three times. And every time my brother's wife is a doctor, and she'd be like, oh, he's dead.

He's not going to make it. And I was like, hey, the angel of death. We don't need. Okay. And then, but he kept living. And then, and he came out. of it really sort of aware of his own mortality. Is he alive now?

Yeah. He is. It's going to be 89 this one. Wow. Yeah. But that's what it took for him to finally be like, man. To some extent. He's always been a bit of a charmer, but it's not, you know, he's just, he's more sort

of aware of the things that, like they took away his car two years ago, my brothers. And the other week I was talking to him, but he said, I dropped something on the floor. I squatted down to pick it up. and I said, you can still squat at 88? And he goes, no, this is what I've learned. I cannot squat. I fell on my ass. And I said, then what to happen?

He said, I rolled over and I had a push-up. I can still do a push-up. Fuck yeah, my man. That's it. That's it. Upper body. You little gym rat. And because everybody's short.

They're all short. My brother, Scott's the tallest. He's just shy of or just at six feet. Okay. So, can we go back to mom passing away for a sec here? So this is a lady you really don't know or remember much. I was mentioning to you, my dad died at 16. You said, yeah, you probably knew them and a little bit.

I wish I knew more, but a little bit. Sure. And to your credit as well, like, you know, you start remembering things that, like you say, two, three. You don't really start remembering things until later. So you didn't get eight years with your mom. You got maybe four, three. Yeah. You know, that's if that.

When that happens, you're in what about third grade, second grade or so. Second grade. Do you remember the kids in school? Did you? No. Who told you? Oh. And how to do you?

This is not a positive detail. But this is not a positive. This is the honeydew. This is not what this story. This is the honeydew, you guess. So it's been, so I'm, I've just turned eight, I think. So I'm seven, essentially. I'm in, I'm in, and she died in July.

And, um, I think July. I might have been early August. Whatever. August, actually, I think it was August 6th or 7th. Whatever. So, um, we're all sitting in this dumb apartment, the six kids. And my dad and, uh, a policeman come in. Oh.

And I don't recognize my dad. because I haven't seen him in four years. And I didn't know him very much before. I don't have any memories of my father. I have no memories of my father before the age of eight at all, which is weird now that I think of it. And I'm sitting next to my brother, Russ. I was like, who's that guy?

The guy with the cop. And Russ goes, it's dad, you idiot. And I was like, because, I mean, Russ was, so if I was, if I just turned eight, he would have been like 11 or 12. And my sister would have been nine or ten. And here's the crazy thing. When my sister Darla has a caricature of an abandonment story.

When she was five or six years old, we got evicted. And we had to move to another house. I was little. I was like three or four. So my mother took me, I guess. I wasn't all the ascension. and then my brother, Darla and my brothers were all at school. And they all were going to go to the new house after school.

My brother Scott's job was to pick up my sister. Scott would have been 11, 10 or 11 at that time. His job was to pick up Darla from first grade after school and take her to the new house because she didn't know where it was, but he did. He forgets because he's a child. And she goes back to our house that we lived in and we'd all moved. Yeah. A caricature of abandonment.

When you come home from school and your entire family is run away. Gone. Gone. So she goes to my grandmother's house because she knows where that is. It's, you know, six, four blocks away. And you'd have to know my sister. But I just picture my sister getting to my grandmother's house and going, well, thank God they're gone. What do you want to do?

She's us now, Grandma. I've always wanted to be an only child. Anyway. I just, that's what I picture. So the insanity. Boom. Ridge wallet. Before Ridge wallet, I was basically storing my cash and cards in an uneven leather brick that was ripping at the seams. The kind of wallet that could double as a child's booster seat at a restaurant only on one side and I'm the one sitting on it.

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Tell them the show sent you. Now, let's get back to the dude. But yeah, so I did not. And we lived in that apartment for a little while. I don't know if my dad. lived there? I know Nancy didn't. Nancy. So what really happened, and I don't remember any of this, that first year, is so my mother dies. Nancy and my dad are living together in an apartment in the city of Milwaukee. Nancy goes to live with my grandmother, my dad's mom. Yeah. For a year, for a whole year

where she learns how to make piloff and she learns how to, you know, and, and, and, and, and, he's in it. And, And she helps my grandmother. And my grandmother becomes team Nancy, 112%. And then my dad buys a house, which I'm sure my grandmother bought. And we all move into it with Nancy. And because my parents, Nancy and my dad, who are my parents, got married a year and a day after my mother died. Wow. And then they go to the Wisconsin Dells for their honeymoon.

And we are all scattered with friends and family so they can have a week of a honeymoon. So, and then we're all living together in this dumb house that the attic is unfinished. And Nancy is like, it's fine. And so Terry, my oldest brother, is almost, he's 17. and while we're still at that weird apartment, him and my dad have a huge fight. And he takes a swing at my dad. Oh, shit.

And so he gets put into juvie. Really? Yeah. Really? For the last six months of his childhood. Get the fuck out of here. Just for taking a swing? Well, I think it was, I think there was a lot of things going on.

I think there was a lot of things going on. But they're putting him in juvie. Yeah, well, and my brother, he was, some delinquent home, some sort of, I don't know. Troubled youth. Right, right. It's the Bowery boys. You know, it's just some sort of mom-paw kettle.

We're sending you off to the farm. And so Terry goes into this for six, eight months, and then he turns 18, and he hits the road. He's gone. And he comes back like three years later and brings me a ball that would be for a four-year-old. And so whatever. And then my brother, Phil and Scott. and Russ and Darla and I. So it's Phil Scott and Russ upstairs in the attic in essentially.

It's an unfinished attic with particle board walls that make two rooms and then a big sort of open space. And then stairs down. And then there's a kitchen, a living room, and then two more bedrooms. Darla and I are in one. Nancy and my dad are in the other. And there's no heat upstairs. and Nancy doesn't believe any of my brothers until I go to college and they redo the upstairs and they find out that there's no heat upstairs.

This is when they believe it. That's when they believe it. Yeah. And Wisconsin. Right. And Russ is like, remember? And plus Nancy was like super frugal, right? So we had powdered milk and she was constantly trying to save like, she wouldn't let us

use the Yatsy paper. You know, when you fill out the, when you're playing the games? The officials. Right, right. You got to use a separate, you got to use a separate piece of paper. We can't use them at all.

Right. I guess we're waiting for the queen to come over and play Yatsy. I've never. That's what it's fucking there for. Yeah, this is also well before you could take it at your home and just make photocopies of it. Exactly. Right.

No print to us at the homestead. You got a mail Yotsie probably to get these things. Exactly, right? Same with bad libs. We had bad libs, but we had to do a separate piece of paper. So just in case you wanted to come up with different adjectives later in life. Oh, shit, not crossing out right over it. No, you got to start.

Let me rewind you for a sec. Do you remember the dad and the cop come, but do you remember being told mom's gone? And do they also tell an eight-year-old how she went? Because what a, that's a horrible way to go. They did it. And the crazy, the insanity of it. because what I have in my mind is I have an image. Because I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt one more time.

It's about to be a mindset of who's that guy with the cop, dad, mom's dead. Yes. This is what you're finding out in a matter of. But I'm pretty sure they were like, hey, mom's dead. And then these two guys show up. And one of them was my dad. One of them's a cop. And I didn't, it didn't even occur to me that it mattered.

It didn't. I mean, I was like, no. Okay. Now what? And honestly, I don't remember that first year before we moved into the house. I don't know where we lived. Do you talk to your older siblings about mom ever growing up and anything? Only recently. Because all of my childhood, as Nancy said, if you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all. Okay. So nobody fucking mentions her ever. For 10 years. Even, you don't, just the natural conversation like, what was mom like or nothing? Nothing.

Ten years. Ten years. My old Terry and Scott kind of canonized her. Phil was like, she was all right. And Russ, she used to beat the shit out of Russ because he looked most like my dad. And it was very sad where you're just like. Like, and Russ was beloved. He was my grandmother's favorite, right?

And he was even the teacher's favorite at his grade school. The principal offered to adopt Russ. Oh, just Russ. Fuck that principal, by the way. Such a piece of shit. He's like, I'll take, I'll take the, I'll take the, you know that family unit you probably need. I'll take the one going out of there. Take the good one and then the rest of you guys.

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And then we didn't, there was nobody had, she didn't even have a gravestone, my mother, until my brother Phil, my brother Russ pitched in, bought her one. Was it a plot or? It was, she had a plot. It was near where my grandfather was buried in the Armenian church graveyard. And then, so she has a plot. She has, there's no marker. And then I think in the, I think it was in the 90s, maybe the 80s.

Russ and Phil bought a, bought a marker. And that was it. And so she, like I would occasionally, like when I came back from college, I would go to the bar and I would occasionally run into someone who knew her, my mother. And I'd be like, what do you know about? Yeah. You talk about an adult, like her age. A talk of another adult.

And all, nobody did shit. Nobody do anything. It turns out. I know what she did for work or anything. Well, I know that she had several weird jobs. Like she worked at, there was a neon sign factory in Southwockie, Wisconsin. She has a short-lived job there.

She worked at Lloyd's lunch, which was a counter, a diner thing. And those are the two I know. And so. but she had six kids, right? So there's not a lot of working you can do there. And then she, I think she mostly just hung out at, what's the name of that bar? I can't remember the name of the bar.

But yeah, so that's the bar where the pool table was that I, the one memory I have there. I can't remember. But all I know. Her parents were her parents? Her mom, they disowned. us when she died. Oh.

They blamed, there was a big fight at, um, at the funeral where they blamed my dad for her death. At the funeral? Yeah. Oh, they're blaming him? Yeah, yeah. Well, he, he, his, his marriage plans are, here's a stack of money. I got to go fuck something.

And, uh, you're just like, yeah, you're just like, dude. I know you're 11 years old too. I mean, I look back at all these people and they're just so young and they're such children. And they don't, you know. And my grandmother hated my mother. Yeah. My grandmother thought that my mother had trapped my father. And I was like, oh, did she just fall onto his dick when you bought him a car when he was 16?

Are you out of your mind? Like when one of my nephews turned 16, my dad was like, you should get him a car. And my brother looked at him. He said, yeah, that didn't work out. for you. Yeah. We're not getting him a car. So, yeah. So that's it, huh? Not much of Nancy for you. So, no, well, Nancy. I'm sorry, mom for you. Anne, and Ryan. And Ryan, good egg. I think tried as hard as she could, honestly, did the best she could. And... Wait, the Harold guy. Harold. The motorcycle guy, right? Never shows up again. I thought I was going to ask you. Have you ever heard from him or anything?

No, no. Even in your world? now where you're popular and out there? No. We haven't heard from Harold. We got nothing. We got nothing from Harold. And I'm okay with that. Phil told me that Harold was okay.

Like Phil will talk about my mom sometimes. So Phil had met Harold. Yeah. Phil, no. Phil, everybody knew Harold. Okay. I had met Harold.

Here's the only Harold story I've got is I was probably four or five. And Darle was probably six or seven. And Harold was offering us rides on his Harley. And Darla was like, don't be ridiculous. Because my sister was born 42 years old. She has always wanted to own land. It's going to be a land baron. The only person, the only nine-year-old I ever knew who looked at the real estate section.

She was outstanding. And so he, and I was like, can I go? Can I go? And I was like four. And my mother said, no, you cannot go. You are too little. And so, I mean, she wasn't nuts. She was just overwhelmed. I mean, I could cry for these people, right?

How was she when she passed? 33. So you're looking at a younger, I mean, from her half of her life. Gone. Gone. And now and then dead. And then dead. That's what I'm saying.

Like the first is 60. I could cry for all of them. Yeah. You know, for Nancy? and just falling into this thing and really just doing the best, I mean, we all, it worked, you know. Structure does help. Do you have kids, Jackie? Absolutely not.

No. As part of the reason because of the way you grew up or? I never met anyone I wanted to have. I never really wanted kids. And I never met anyone I wanted to have kids with until I'm not my husband. and that I always assumed was something genuinely genetic because we got married when I was 39. So I had like four eggs left

and they were marinating and like extra chromosomes. So, but I looked at him and I was like, dude, I was like... Are you both the same age? Yeah, okay. Yeah, we're the same age. And so I was like, when I fell in love with him and we got married, I was like, I would like a tiny one of that.

That's how much I like him. I would like a tiny one of that. But it never, you know, I had a miscarriage. And it never took again. So that's, and it's fine. There are 8 billion people on the planet. I have 14 nieces and nephews. I have seven great, I have six great nephews and one great nieces.

Do you really? Yeah. So the genetics, the Jackass Jane runs true. You ever run into some of my brother Terry's sons? You don't want to get yourself a juke. Keep hold of your wallet. I keep my rich wallet in my front pocket. That's it.

Okay. So we talked before, obviously, you sat down in that chair too. So you also talked about dealing with eating disorders. Oh, right, right, which I have only recently realized. I think I've always known that I don't eat normally. And what do you mean? Because I'll just preempt that by saying, I have a very unhealthy relationship with food.

That's what it is. Let's celebrate. Let's eat. A good thing. A bad thing happened. Let's eat. I'm bored. Let's eat.

It's the comfort of that. Right. It's the thing that stops my brain from spiraling. From spiraling. It's something to do. I understand that. You know? Completely.

Unfortunately, I understand that. Right. And it was, you know. And when do you look back and when do you think that really started for you then? Well, I think it's always been there. because there has not been a lot of healthy eating. And Nancy, Nancy was, I'm pretty sure she was bulimic. Because I remember her teaching me how to throw up.

Nah. Yeah. After a meal, she taught you that? Well, I was sick. And she was like, well, you should just throw up. And here's how you do it. And I mentioned to Darla probably a decade or so ago. Do you think Nancy had an eating disorder?

And Darla goes, what is wrong with you? Yes. Yes, she had an eating disorder. Okay, not what is wrong of you. Of course she had an eating. We had powder milk. She never ate with us. Oh, so dinner time was for everybody but her.

But her. And she would just sort of perch on the side. And then she would later eat some ice cream and drink a Coke. And you're like, wow. And you look at the food. She ate. It was not. It wasn't great. So, yeah. But so, I mean, there was a weird relationship with food with her. And then it's just, it's just a way to stuff feelings to some extent. And I really wish,

I don't know, I know that there's like, there's groups. There's like 12 step groups and stuff. Overeaters Anonymous. I don't know what it is. But whatever. I've been told there's an anonymous for everything. There's a group for everybody. And there's a group for if you don't want to beat a group. Yeah. There's a group if you're in too many groups. In too many groups, we'll get you a group. And I'll tell you something about the 12-step groups, cheaper than therapy because they're free.

Yeah, that's free. They're free. It's a buck if you got it. And if you like debtor's anonymous, my friend Maria, love it. He loves debtors. What's that? Gamblers? What is that? No, there's gamblers.

Anonymous is paired sometimes with under-earner's anonymous. And it's just if you have crazy relationships with money. But you're in debt? If you are in debt. You can't afford that money. Well, right. If you were in debt or if you feel like for some reason you're not making enough money or you just feel like you don't deserve to make money and then you deserve and then

you buy, you know, you buy things that are weird and you use money sort of addictively as opposed to just. And with debtor's anonymous from what I've heard is it's, you know, you buy things. You can't have unsecured debt. You, like, you shouldn't have credit cards. And you shouldn't have, um, and, and you shouldn't, but you should definitely buy, you should definitely treat yourself. Like, it's not about deprivation.

Like, if you have, you owe somebody a hundred grand. It's like, it's like what my, because my father's a big gambler. Oh, he is. Yeah. And, uh, but he also is aware of the fact that when you, you go into the hospital, they said you a bill. And if that hospital, my father and my sister have both explained this to me at length. If that hospital gets any kind of federal funding, they have to do a certain amount of sliding fee scale billing, certain amount of prorated billing.

And they don't want to give you the paperwork. You have to ask several times to fill out your income, and then they can give you a sliding fee scale bill. And most times, I remember I broke my wrist and I didn't have insurance and it took a month to get that paperwork and I filled it out and the woman looked at it just said yeah you will not be owing us any money because you are poor and but if you end up owing if you end up owing money to them you can pay them back two bucks a month forever and they can't put a lien on anything you own they can't put a lien on your income medical bills okay and uh credit card bills you can't just blow up entirely.

And I've been watching. I know a lady that told me she went to the hospital, just refused to give them her identification. It's illegal for them not to treat you. They insist, ma'am, we need your ID. Don't have it with me. What's your name? I'm going to give it to you.

Or you can give them a fake one. Yeah. And then there's no one to send the bill to. There's no one to send the bill to. And all the hospital people are telling me that, although it's obviously unethical and illegal that by the letter of the law, you can do it. Anyone could do that. Right.

And hospitals are private organizations that are profit making things. So suck it up. Yeah. What hospital do you know is bankrupt? None of them. Just fix a person. That's right. Fix a person.

And but you can like my dad lives in this old people apartment building now. And there was a guy, many, I have six years. ago or so that was freaking out because he had some $35,000 bill. And my dad was like, can you believe people are upset about a bill? And I was like, yeah, it's a bill. Dad, people pay bills. He's like, not a hospital bill. You die out of a hospital money. That's a win. Now, is that right? It doesn't carry over to your family or anything like that. No. I didn't know that. And you can. And debtor's anonymous is like, yes, you want to pay your debts, but you can't, you have to prioritize food and shelter.

You need to be able to eat. You need to be able to live indoors. And then, and if you send them a buck or five bucks a month forever, you are paying off that debt. And that is realistic. And then under-earner is anonymous is, I believe, where you figure out how to ask for a raise. I don't know. Have you ever asked for a raise? How'd that go?

The first time. No, not good at all. It's like, yeah, now you want more money, get another job. Was that what it was? Mm-hmm. So the first time I asked for a raise, the guy made fun of me so hardcore. Made fun of you. Yeah, because I didn't know how to do it.

I was talking to him. I was like, Mark, you got me at this T-shirt shop. I was in college. And I said, I genuinely need like 35 cents more an hour. And I said, I just, I'm looking at my bills. I need like 35 cents more an hour. And he said, what's that got to do with me? And I said, well, you're my employer.

I need a raise. And but I sort of stumbled over the words and I didn't have it, you know, I hadn't practiced or anything. And he just laughed. He was like, that's the worst way of asking I've ever heard of in my life. And I said, it can be bad, but it doesn't change the fact that I need the raise. And he was like, what? And I said, I still need the raise. And he was like, fine.

And so he gave the raise. Now, the other time I asked for a raise, see, I'm raised by my dad, the sales guy. He's like, he doesn't ever have a problem asking for what he wants. It is one of his most charming attributes because then he's like, well, you might as well ask. Like he's always said, do whatever you want in life because I'm going to make funny either way. That's a good point. Right. He's just like, if you're super successful, I'd be like, hey, big shot.

And if you don't try it, be like, why would you? do you try? When you scare something? Yeah. And so he's like, so just try. Who gives it? Who gives a damn? And so my last day job when I went in, I was going to Pirm.

And I needed an extra dollar an hour. And the woman was like, well, we might be. I said, I need to, this needs to, this is my nut. So I need to, I need to net $450 a week. and she's which was my rent at the time and uh and she goes the HR person said well I don't think we can raise your rent your your wage to that I think we could only do like 70 cents instead of a dollar and I said I didn't come up with that number arbitrarily that is the actual number I need and she was like what and I said yeah I mean I that's what I need to work here and she said

well, I don't think we can do it. I said, okay, I guess I can't, I guess we'll just, you know, keep paying $27 an hour to the temp agency instead of paying me $15 an hour. And she was like, well, I don't have the kind of authorization. I said, I'll just go ask the boss. I'll be right back. And so I go and I find the boss. You did.

Debra Schuster and who has been my boss and wanted me to be perm. And I said, she wants to give you 70 cents more than, than, I need it to beat this amount. And Debra Schuster goes, oh, my God, yes, $15 an hour. And then she just went to HR and they were like, okay. And so you have to, I mean, especially in this market, you have to know in Los Angeles that there's another $20 an hour job. because that's the minimum wage. Is that where we're at now in L.A.? Pretty sure.

But you can't get an apartment. My apartment was $450 a month with off-street parking. It was a one-bedroom in 1999. And that apartment right now is got to be $15, $1,600. And I don't think I could make $1,600 a week. At $28 an hour, what is that? $1,600 a week. It would have to be $80.

It would have to be $80. $1.6. No, $40 a hour. Yeah, it would be $40 or $45 a hour at $40 hours a week. Nobody's paying that. I mean, that's, Maria Baford does this. You got to go make that money yourself. Right, you got to go find that money.

You got to go find that money. And it's, and I do, like I try to, Maria Bantford, I open for her to stand up. She pays me. Also came to see Brian Regan what must up son years ago who you opened for. Yeah. He pays super fair. These are people who are successful and pass on that success to the people who work for them.

Brian Regan, he's downsizing, right? He got rid of his bus, which cost him something like $150,200 grand a year. And he passed on that money to the six or seven of us that opened for him. Hell yeah. I love that. He added to each of our paychecks. He's like, it almost doubled what I make from him. And I mean, some of the other comics open for him more, but I work so much that I don't think I can open as much for him, just scheduling-wise. But I open for Maria a fair amount, and she pays very fair. And so I have tried to, I don't make that kind of money. And Maria does. make Brian Regan kind of money, but we all, to our extent, try to... And Maria does this great joke about how there's... She's talked to her to talk to people and they're like, well, we pay the woman who cleans our house 20 bucks an hour, so she's pretty happy.

And then Maria goes, are you... Have you made eye contact with her? Because that blows. If I'm making 20 bucks an hour and I'm cleaning your house, I'm definitely siphoning off your conditioner. I'm still on a watch. Something's coming too. Yeah, yeah.

It's just low. He's using our conditioner. We're going through conditioner. So when do you realize then that you have an unhealthy relationship with food? When do you realize that? Seriously, about a year ago. Really? Yeah, off and on.

Like, I've done Weight Watchers. I've done, I mean, I've always known it. But the. To our. In our defense, weight can be from a various, it can be a new drug you take that's put weight on and things like that. When do you realize the food is the issue, though? You know what I mean? I think during lockdown.

I don't exercise. But during lockdown, there was a raised and menopause and all exercise and all of the, the, all of the. sort of the aging process where you don't lose the weight as quick because your body changes makes you more aware of the fact that when you eat what you're eating, it sticks around more and you're using it because of the anxiety of the world to try to numb out what's happening, right? But if we're honest, there's, there's, and it's, it's not. like there's even when I went to Weight Watchers

20 years ago Weight Watcher's entire plan is you can eat whatever you want you can eat all the carrots you can eat all the grapes you can eat you can totally eat like a crazy person and you won't gain weight and you'll lose weight

and so they added to it they create they don't create a good relationship with food those those things because you're like, that's why people eat fat-free stuff or locale or no sugar or whatever, a thousand popsicles instead of just a piece of food. And I... And I... By points and things like that.

Points and no point food. And then I'm counting calories or anything you're doing like that where you're like, oh, I get to eat this amount of grapes or I could have this sandwich. and this sandwich has 300 calories, but these grapes have 70 calories, and I could probably eat three of these then. And then all of a sudden, you're eating a thousand grapes, like a weirdo. And so it feels like an emotional eating. It feels like you're eating to prove something that you can, that you're just like, I'm just going to, it's like smoking, right?

Where you're just like, I'm putting something in my face to keep my mouth busy, to keep my brain busy so I'm not sitting in my own. Do you ever do the artist's way? You ever hear about that? Yeah, absolutely. So week four, I just did an episode of the Dork Forest with Maria came out today. So it'd be a couple of months ago. But she, week four is the week you can't read or watch TV. Oh, is that right? Remember that? It was, it's a deprivation thing where you have to sit with your own mind, your own thoughts and you can write, but you can't read. And you can't watch TV, can't listen to music, can't listen to the radio. No social media.

No social media. If you have a job where you have to read and do things like that, so be it. But keep it to the eight hours a day or whatever it is. And then you're done. So we're getting no outside stimulation. We're working on what's in our head only. Right. For at least whatever, that would be 12 hours or 14 hours a day.

And then you could only sleep eight hours a day. So now you're six hours. For seven days, you are present. Nobody wants that. I mean, what am I a Buddhist? You know? But when I did it, and I don't know if I made it the whole week. And they talk about that in the task part of the chapter.

They're like, what made you, did you binge? Did you just slip once? What'd you do? And how'd that make you feel? And what'd you do? And how do you? What do you? And, you know, it's not pejorative.

Like the artist's way is the most hippie, skippy, you know, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Believe in yourself. That's all the book is, right? So, but just think about that with food. Because you would want, you know, because there are things that I do to check out. It's certainly not. calling my congressman right you're right it's not marching right it's not not writing a

nasty email to somebody right it's it's not starting a movement right it's it's right it's right it's some fucking french fries right right i was gonna eat some french fries i'm gonna reread this book for the 30th time because i know how it ends comfort it's just comfort it's comfort food it's comfort book it's familiarity yeah all of it i'm not trying a new food either i just want the shit i know that i like you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah Anyway, but what to do about it. Yeah, what are you doing about it? So far, just admitting it.

Saying it out loud. I've never said it out loud publicly. This is it. This is me doing that. I don't know what to do. I don't want. And the thing is, is when you look like this and you're a woman, for 40 years I've had people tell me how to lose weight and to lose weight. And famously, Mitch Fetel, to not lose weight because I wouldn't be funny anymore.

at which point you want to go, hey, Mitch Raytell, why don't you eat a dick? Yeah, fuck yourself. Yeah, for real. And so, but like there's a lot of advice. Does that your head, do you worry about that? Being funnier? No, just if you lose weight or you look different that somehow that is going to affect your personality or who you used to. I stopped drinking and I thought for sure that I would.

You couldn't be funny. I might not be funny, more worried about socializing. And I was like, if I don't party, man, I'm not going to get the work. Right. Turns out you get the work. You get the work, you get the work you get the work you're going to get anyway. I got different work because I don't party. That's right.

And the work I got is good work. And there's nothing wrong with the work that I got. Can I ask you personal questions? Well, here we are. Well, with the weight and everything is more, are you, do you know your cholesterol? Are you taking care of your blood work? Oh, like is my heart in problem? Yeah.

So for a lot of people, that's it. For a lot of people, they realize I have a bad relationship with food because my doctor's telling me that I need to lose weight. I have diabetes, whatever it is. Right, right. Is your health okay? I have, I take a statin because my cholesterol. Me too. So, like, I was lapp in people.

And, and, but that, but I will say that one of the things is as you get older and, I and I remember being like because I've probably gained 40 pounds in the last three or four years and I remember being less heavy like lighter and it was easier to move and it was easier to to and just I think not hauling around an eight year old like you know an eight year old weighs about 60 70 pounds if I could lose 60 or 70 pounds I wouldn't be carrying it an eight-year hold around with me at all times. And I'd probably have a little more energy and a little more stuff like that. I think about, I mean, the older we get, the harder it is to carry weight on your frame anyway. Right. So I'd like, so that's what I'm more interested in. Are you scared of the, these, the Reaper?

What are they, GPL ones or whatever these things are? The pills and the, and the shots and all that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not in favor of that just because, remember Olestra? Yeah. Aetal leaking. Come on.

I was going to say. We are of the era where everyone had this food, then all of a sudden, here come, TAB and Olestra, and you're like, wait, and it says on the bag can cause anal leakage right there. But hey, these are baked plates, and there are 35 less calories per bag. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering about all these people that are shooting themselves now.

And in 10, 20 years, what's it going to do to your body? And they're losing weight so fast. And, you know, but I also have a friend of mine who's lost weight through eating less than exercise. Huh? Come on. Bingo. That's the thing. Like, I, I.

But you could see that she's older now. Mm-hmm. Because if I lost that 60 pounds, you could tell exactly how old I was. Because this is filling in a lot of wrinkles and a lot of, a lot, there'd be a lot more sag. That's interesting. You're saying that it's an idea that I think about. Because of the weight loss and the skin? Yeah.

Huh. Or less, I mean, she doesn't, not from every angle, right? Every angle. I'm like, when we are making love. No. Anyway. So when, when, but I think I would look a lot older if I lost a lot of weight. You don't look your age.

Well, and it's because the 40, that 40 pounds will fill in some wrinkles. So, and it doesn't really. You know, I know people my age who have always exercised and are, and have always been relatively thin, who don't look their age either. But if I were to lose this 60, 70 pounds, I'd like to lose. I'd have to get all this business tucked away somewhere. I don't know what, I don't know what would happen. And I probably wouldn't because I don't even want to put makeup on.

So, whatever, you know. But I would like to be. be healthier. That's it. I would like to, I would like to carry less weight so I could move easier. And I think clothes would look better on me because mostly I'm just wearing, uh, and I do only wear jeans at a t-shirt, but I think the jeans and t-shirt would look better on me. But you can't, you can't, uh, I don't want to, I don't want, and I don't want to be a dick about it, right? Like I don't want to feel bad about myself. Right. I miss today. I'm fucking beating yourself up over that. Yeah, I know. It's a lot that goes into it. And I don't, now I got to eat something because I fuck.

Right. And I don't want any fucking feedback. Yeah. You know, I don't need, I don't need a gym internet, pipe it up and going, here's what I'm just saying, if you were to work out for one minute a day and move your feats and you're like, no, no, you're not, you don't have to explain how to read and write to me. I'm familiar with the idea of diet and exercise. And I have a bike. My husband gets, I asked for a bike. Got it two years ago. I've written it like six times. That's okay.

But, but it's like, and I take Pilates with this woman, but I'm on the road so much. And though I will say the last couple of weeks I have looked at in the, in the hotel, I've looked at the like the workout room. Because I was a member of a gym for people. Yeah. I mean, look, I try, well, I have a blood disease. I found out when I was 42. So I clot and I need to keep my machine in motion.

Okay. So if I work out with a physical therapist a couple times a week and then I make sure I get out and move my machine. Okay. Like that's what I have to do for my health. Right. But the food is always going to be something because, yeah, today I do want to go to McDonald's. Right. You know, and now on the road, too, after the pandemic,

even the big cities like Philly and everything that had a great late night dining. I'm not seeing it anymore. After 10 p.m. It's fast food. It's fast food. It really is. It's pizza, fast food, and the mini-marts. Man, I have to tell you, it was probably 15 years ago. I'd have been about TaskRavit and Big Dot.

And now, and I was like, why would anyone have food delivered that wasn't pizza? DoorDash, Instacart. And everyone's like, I'm going to spend 40. on a McDonald's meal. And you're like, have you lost your goddamn mind? Go to McDonald's. And except for the fact that at, like, I stayed a lot of Hilton's. There's always a closet of weird food next to the check-in.

But it's always like a lean cuisine. Yep. It's been there for quite a lot. It's lean cuisines, hot pockets, and burritos. Right. And then there's a triangle sandwiches at the airport. Yeah. And I'm just like.

I don't want to eat this crap, but I don't want to eat another banana that wants to be banana bread. Yes. You know, I'm just like, this is an old banana. I'm not psyched about it. And now I have to get rid of a banana peel. So, and I go to like the Delta Sky Club, they will have healthy food, but they will also have desserts. Of course. They'll have a bunch of bullshit.

And so I drank, so what I do is I end up drinking too much coffee in an effort to not eat too much food. and then I eat too much food because I forgot to eat because all I did was drank coffee. So the whole thing, I'm a project. This is my current project is trying to figure out

how to have a decent relationship with food and exercise. And health. That where I can spend the last 20, 30 years of my life, not, you know, I'm watching the Paralympics. I'm watching the Paralympics. going, holy shit, that woman does not have an arm and has no leg and has a prosthetic leg and

she is on a snowboard. You are my hero, lady. And nobody stopped you. Nobody stopped you and you didn't stop yourself. And holy hell. So, yeah. Well, I love you. I think you're fantastic. I love Project Jackie 2026 and beyond. Please take care of your health. I will. Before we let you go, advice you give to 16 year old Jackie Cation. You're fucking hot. You were so hot. Look that rack. Look at that rack, lady.

Did you have one at 16? Oh, yeah. It was actually very disturbing and uncomfortable. I don't think you know this about, because I mean, I suppose it's got a rival like when guys start getting boners all the time. Oh, good Lord. It's embarrassing. You don't even know the first one hits you in sweatpants in high school.

or middle school and you're like, and everybody's laughing. Yeah, you're pointing at you. And you're putting a hand in your pocket and you're trying to live your goddamn life. Mm-hmm. When you get boobs, uh, it happens.

It feels like overnight you get boobs. That's all I ever hear. I went to bed with no boobs. I woke up with humongous boobs. You would wake up with giant boobs. You wake up with a boner and you're like, oh shit. Now everybody knows, uh,

that I, uh, am a person. And so or, and it's, uh, yeah, so,

I would say, like, I think when I was 16, I wanted to be a history teacher, a forest ranger, or a lawyer. And I didn't really want to be a lawyer. My sister wanted me to be the lawyer. Turns out my sister's the boss of me. And she was great. And still is. Still is. She's great.

I'm going to Berlin. And she wanted to go to Berlin. And she's like, come with me to Berlin. All right. And I was like, all right. So I'm doing a couple of sets in Berlin. Oh, good. All right.

Andy and I are going to Berlin and April. And, but altercation, right? You can watch that on YouTube for freeze. Dork Forest, Jackie and Lori Show, a couple of pods. Super fun. You can listen to those for freeze. And then. Your dates.

Where do you find your dates? Your website. Jackiecation.com has the tour dates. The Instagram, I'm constantly pitching about it. The Pandora. I'm always doing the mini ads on Panthers. And my new album is going to be on Pandora starting March 27. So it's there.

Is that through Blonde Medicine? It's through Blonde medicine. Our boy, Dominic Delbenny, boom. Cut the pickle. Boom. Get a tickle. It's up high, down low, cut the pickle. Cut the pickle.

Get it. That's it. Get a tickle. Okay. And that's a new one for me. I'm a hit with toddlers. I can tell you. That's a, you don't really tickle anybody.

Because tickling, of course, is abuse. Yeah. I have five older siblings. There was some brothers doing some tickling until I wet myself. They thought it was funny. Fuck those guys. Maybe that's the origin story of the whole wet in the bed. Here we are.

Could have been. Could have been. Well, thank you for doing this. Hey, thanks for having me. Go see Jackie on the road. Watch her specials. Check out her podcast. As always, Ryan Sickler and all your social media.

We'll talk to you all next week.